ninetyeightytwo

2012 Film Challenge #18 - The Muppets (2011)

2012-02-16T14:58:00.000-08:00

For some reason I recently took to convincing myself that I didn't grow up with The Muppets. That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? And it is. It went like this – I saw an outpouring of affection in the run-up to the release of this – their first cinematic outing since 1999 - and thought, I've no right to join in. I didn't grow up with The Muppets.

Why did I do that? Was I so resigned to the whole “the cynics have won” idea that, when presented with something that suggested that all is not lost and that people do still take unabashed joy in things – I just refused to let myself join in?

For the truth is, of course I grew up with The Muppets. Did I not go and see their Christmas Carol when I was five, and has it not since formed an essential part of the whole celebration to the point that – as recently as last year – I considered Christmas to have truly begun from the instant it came on TV? And did I not used to absolutely love Muppets Tonight when I was, what? Nine? Ten?

Of course I grew up with The Muppets. We all did. And that's why I know I'm not the only one to have found this film almost overwhelmingly wonderful.

An opening monologue said it all – in so many words – so long as there are Muppets, there is hope.

It's that simple. They represent a very pure, innocent and resilient enjoyment of life. Though their humour is knowing and self-referential, it's a world away from the hateful “banter” and snarky “sideways looks” that seem to be prerequisites for laughter in the twenty-first century.

Indeed, for perhaps the very first time, this film explicitly identified The Muppets as an antidote to cynicism. Starting out as a tribute act, the antagonist enlists a team of “Moopets” as a “hard and cynical replacement for a hard and cynical world”. They wear black leather and chains and so resemble the baddies from every eighties film, ever – or, at the very least, the cast of Meet The Feebles.

Yes, they're dated, but they're still seriously bad news. And though I knew that The Muppets would ultimately triumph, all the same I still found myself fearing for their future – and I still found myself to be genuinely moved by the arguably “predictable” happy ending.

You could argue, then, that this thing made me regress to a regrettable state of childhood wonder – or, alternatively, you could consider the notion that perhaps some things are sacred, some things are worth caring about and some things are just plain lovely right down to the core.

If you want to argue otherwise, go ahead. I don't care.

Why should I? The Muppets exist.

And not only do they exist, but they now have an 80s Robot and a ridiculously catchy soundtrack by Brett McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords!

And they come with a bonus new Toy Story short which featured the immortal Ghost Burger!

Having saw this last night, a good mood was instilled that still hasn't quite lifted.

It seems that The Muppets always meant more to me than I'd ever let on.

2012 Film Challenge #17 - Carry-On Screaming!

2012-02-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

Carry-On films aren't very good, but they're far from unwatchable. This one, though, it's notorious, isn't it? A parody of the horror films which succeeds in being every bit as – if not more so – disturbing as the films it so gleefully lampoons.

Nearly a decade ago (Christ), Channel 4 put out some fantastic Halloween related television. It all centred around one of their lists – ho, I miss their lists – The 100 Scariest Moments.

This appeared in it, and originally I thought it to be one of the more innocuous entries – the sort that's only included because those who compiled the list had memories of childhood trauma attached. Not really scary now, but it used to be.

However, I did find this quite scary. Hammer Horror films feature gruelling horror with occasional flashings of light relief. This was light relief with occasional forays into truly disquieting territory.

Dr. Watt has an evil money-making scheme which seems so flawed in its money-making potential that it has to have been devised based purely on deep-seated sadism: He's boiling women alive to turn them into wax mannequins to sell to shops.

I mean, how much must mannequins be if abduction, torture and murder represents a preferable alternative to just buying them? No, Dr. Watt must be doing this because he's enjoying it. Frying tonight!

But he's not enjoying it, is he? The whole thing wears him out to the point that he has to plug himself into the mains and literally recharge. He's compelled then. He does it because he has to.

That, combined with the fact that he's Kenneth Williams and so accompanies his horrific deeds with a slew of double entendres makes him even worse than the Jigsaw Killer, if you ask me.

There's nothing worse than a self-righteous serial killer. Seven, Saw and Phonebooth: They're sanctimonious, tedious hypocrites.

In aiming for gentle comedy, though, the Carry-On gang accidentally achieved horrifying gold.

Is that saying something? Perhaps it is.

2012 Film Challenge #16 - Porridge

2012-02-14T12:06:00.000-08:00

I've never really seen the TV series on which this is based before. Of course I've been in the room whilst it's been on, but we sort of kept out of each others way. Never did this mutual tolerance extend to actual engagement with one another. Fletcher and friends entertained themselves whilst I tried not to make eye contact.

But having seen this film, that's something I'll have to redress should the opportunity ever arise. But it never seems to be on any more. And I'm not so keen that I'll consider buying a boxset. Sorry, Ronnie.

There were two curious aspects of the plot. First, a screw started work at the prison at about the same time as a new inmate arrived. They were both finding their feet at the same time – both immersed in the same environment but in vastly different worlds.

Then came the marvellous conceit of prisoners trying to break in to prison. This reversal of the standard prison-film fare feels unique, but I suppose it was quite necessary. The film's set one year before the series ended. To have Fletcher involved in the antics you'd expect from a cinematic inmate would be to break canon and continuity. He has to remain inside. Poor guy.

Until he goes straight, of course.

Filmed entirely on location in an actual real prison, this made for an atmosphere that was cold, clinical and stifling, but also surprisingly cosy. With the heating turned up, such locales as the screw bar and Fletcher's cell would become havens in the midst of the grime.

And it ended in exactly the same way as did every single episode of every single British sitcom of the seventies – with a cheeky visual punchline and a freeze frame.

Brilliant.

2012 Film Challenge #15 - You've Got Mail

2012-02-12T03:35:00.000-08:00

A dark foreboding prediction of things to come: When this film first came out, the internet and all its trimmings were fresh, clean and sparkling. Here, the implications this then-emerging technology would have on human interaction were explored for perhaps the first time in mainstream glossiness. And it often makes for chilling viewing. It's all here: The anonymity, the creation of idealised online personae, the careful consideration and second-thoughts experienced in the seconds before clicking “send”.

I was, in all honesty, expecting a fizzy schmaltz of a romantic comedy. I was expecting Sleepless in Seattle.

But no. Most of it took place in a cosy glowing autumnal world of books. It's full of nice jumpers, nice furniture, nice wallpaper and earnest quasi-learned discussions about Pride & Prejudice.

I was wondering, at first, why this film isn't embraced by certain sections of the blogosphere as covetous lifestyle porn. Is it because people wrongly suppose that it's the fizzy schmaltz of a romantic comedy I originally supposed it to be?

No. It's because, in the final third, it becomes every bit of the fizzy schmaltz of a romantic comedy it was always going to be when, for the sake of a happy ending, Meg Ryan hooks up with her online stalker who also happens to be responsible for the destruction of her dreams and livelihood.

Tut.

2012 Film Challenge #14 - Trading Places

2012-02-11T03:48:00.000-08:00

One negative aspect of pledging to write about every film I see for the first time in 2012 is that I will, on occasion, have no choice but to admit to having never seen a film that everyone else already has.

And here we have a John Landis film starring Dan Ackroyd, and I've never seen it before. Here we have the film used as proof that Eddie Murphy used to be funny by those who insist that Eddie Murphy isn't funny any more, and I've never seen it.

I have now, though.

It concerns the affairs of men so rich that they've taken to amusing themselves with mad bets. Playing with the whole nature/nurture debate, the theory is that Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy are nothing more than products of their environments. To prove this, they destroy Dan Ackroyd and give Eddie Murphy limitless wealth, a big house and a really important job.

The film sort of falls on the nurture side of the debate as, within days of the switch, Mr. Ackroyd has taken to crime and Mr. Murphy is able to translate his street-smarts into Wall Street-smarts.

Ultimately, though, the point is made that nothing has a more devastating effect upon character and morality than does the love of money. The smug billionaires are eventually brought to justice in the most fitting ways possible – by losing everything they hold dear and being subjected to prolongued gorilla rape.

Yes, the corrupt, amoral Wall Street stock-brokers use racial slurs and play havoc with the lives of others for their own petty amusement.

Those who were children in a world in which films like this exist would grow up to be the Occupy Wall Street generation. Whilst towards the end a lot of the jokes seem to amount to “look how foreign he is!”, all told this thing is every bit as prescient as it used to be.

Plus is involves a scene in which a disgraced Dan Ackroyd dressed as a dishevelled Santa stuffs a salmon down his jacket. Was this the inspiration for Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections? Perhaps. But not even Mr. Franzen could come up with an image more soaked in desperate decadence than that of Mr. Ackroyd eating said salmon through his grubby synthetic beard.

2012 Film Challenge #13 - Kill List

2012-02-07T14:15:00.000-08:00

A genre piece. But what genre? True, British grit, or disquieting folk horror? It's somewhere between This Is England and The Wicker Man, but I'm pretty comfortable placing it into a sub-sub-sub-genre of “films what start out perfectly normal like but end up well mental” - in which you're not quite able to pinpoint the precise moment at which things go wrong.

Previously, beyond perhaps David Lynch's entire canon, there was only really one entrant in this curious genre: Synecdoche New York. Have you seen it? It goes mad in the most organic way possible. And so does Kill List. Already I want to watch it again so I can look out for the clues. By the end, scenes which were previously completely innocuous – even charmingly innocent – took on a horribly sinister turn.

I know this one to be notorious for shocking violence and an overall disturbing atmosphere – that's what drew me to it in the first place - and such films usually arouse a great deal of curiosity from the likes of me. I often find myself scouring the web for a clue into what might cause such controversy.

And I'm often disappointed by bloggers and reviewers who keep their cards close to their chest. But now I think I understand. The joy is in not knowing. It's simple: The less you know about this film before you watch it, the more it'll shock you, the more you'll enjoy it.

Suffice to say, though, that it divides opinion and raises a lot more questions than it answers. It's been described as a “cult hit in the making”. Personally, I think it's already there.

Horror is supposed to get under the skin. This one, though, burrows into the brain. Most scenes featured an approximation of Hitchcock's “ice-box moments” - where only afterwards do you realise that something's amiss. Why was an image carved into the back of the bathroom mirror? Why was the same image scribbled on the shoebox in the lock-up filled with the things that cannot be unseen? Why did everyone, before dying, seem genuinely grateful?

There's a lot going on, and whilst it probably wouldn't do the old grey matter – or the social life - any good to spend too much time watching it; this is chilling, engrossing and mystifying food-for-thought.

Kudos too for the incredible dissonant soundtrack – very reminiscent of the misty, haunting landscapes created by Richard Skelton.

A lot to love here.

Or maybe you'll just find it utterly repulsive.

It takes all sorts.

2012 Film Challenge #12 - Hands of the Ripper

2012-02-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

In the opening moments of this film, one of Victorian London's greatest mysteries is solved as the identity of Jack the Ripper is revealed. This makes this, perhaps, the only film to ever open with a big twist.

Poor Anna, Jack the Ripper's orphaned daughter, is blighted with a terrible condition whereby bright, twinkling lights cause for her to enter a deadly trance. Should someone kiss her on the cheek whilst she's in this state, she instantly murders them using whatever's at hand: A fire poker, a hand mirror, a pincushion.

It's hinted, though, that Anna is frequently whored out by her “grandmother”. Quite how she went seventeen years without suffering one of her “turns” remains unclear. The initial one is triggered when one of her would-be “clients” gives her a glittering bracelet. He couldn't've been the first to do this, so why is it implied that this is the first time Anna's found herself possessed by the murderous soul of her notorious father?

Perhaps the condition had lain dormant for sixteen years, only to emerge as part of puberty – like the mutant powers in X-Men.

Well, there's a police inquest featuring a gathering of the final facial hair to ever grace a single scene. Here a kindly old psychotherapist, enamoured with Freud, decides to experiment on Anna to see if her condition can be understood and cured.

This, though, simply allows for Anna to kill and kill again in a series of shockingly violent (as opposed to schlockingly violent) murder scenes.

In short, it's brilliant – and the utterly adorable blind woman who meanders smilingly through several scenes adds much light to this otherwise dark and tragic tale.

I loved it.

This is becoming something of a Hammer Horror year for me, isn't it? Long may it last.

2012 Film Challenge #11 - Dark Floors

2012-02-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

Remember Lordi, who reaped Eurovision victory with their theatrical hard rock? Did you know that they had their own film? I didn't. And, unfortunately, even having watched said film, I'm still not convinced.

Does that make sense? No? Basically, whilst allowing that I've heard precisely one song from their repertoire, with their gaudy monstrous costumes (and the fact that they appeared on Eurovision), I'd've thought that they were fun. You know, one of those fun bands.

"Lordi The Movie" should have had them using magical powers to solve murder mysteries, or perhaps fighting robot demons from hell using nothing but jagged riffs and metallic growls. Instead, though, we got the most expensive Finnish horror film ever made which also happens to be incredibly dull. The walls aren't so much dripping with blood as with tedium.

There's a little girl in a wheelchair who may or may not be psychic. She and a group of cyphers find themselves trapped in space and time having boarded an elevator they shouldn't've. This leads to dark and gloomy corridors filled with flickering lights, disembodied voices and sudden jumps – modern horror owes so much of a debt to survival horror video games that it all looks and feels the same now. This film, and many others like it, could form the basis for a bout of cliché bingo, or perhaps a hackneyed-horror drinking game.

And what a disappointment it is, as a result. It's dark, gloomy and tired where it should have been loud, outrageous and fun. And, apart from anything else, it doesn't really make any sense.

Apparently, those who really get Lordi also get this film. It seems that the plot makes a lot more sense if you're aware of the various lore surrounding each member of the band.

And, for some reason, the idea that you're supposed to take Lordi so seriously makes me feel really sad.

2012 Film Challenge #10 - The House That Dripped Blood

2012-01-28T03:52:00.000-08:00

An Amicus portmanteau horror with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. There was no way this one could fail.

And it didn't. It really, really didn't.

Each of the stories were somehow linked to the same old scary old house – a wonderfully creepy Victorian Gothic manor with a creaking grandfather clock, a library full of leather-bound Poe and a fantastic skull whose jaw flipped open to reveal an inkwell.

As a framing story, this seems a lot less contrived than the “group of strangers meet up and talk about their dreams” conceit that usually takes place in films of this nature. Each of the house's four successive inhabitants met some kind of sticky end, and this spate of death was in the process of being investigated by a dry and brittle old detective. No-nonsense in his outlook of life, he primed himself from the moment he appeared for a bit of good old fashioned supernatural comeuppance.

Of the four stories, the first was undoubtedly the best. It played with the idea that those who create fictional characters will, if they're not careful, become said fictional characters. In this case it was an unbearably creepy strangler called Dominick. And, whilst each of the stories ended with a twist, in this case the twist was the most unexpected, the most shocking and, as a result, the most chilling.

Then came the second story – yer standard “man falls in love with a fake woman” fare so beloved of the horror genre. This particular spin of the yarn, though, was stronger than most, as it starred Peter Cushing – otherwise known as “the loveliest man who ever did live”. It was hard to share his attraction of the false woman (a waxwork of Salome), but impossible not to feel moved by his plight. Here, the majority of the action took place in an incredible looking “Museum of Horror” - if it's real, I do so want to visit now.

This segment also featured one of the most endearing moments I've ever seen in any film. One of Mr. Cushing's old friends came to see him. He opened the door and happily exclaimed “Neville!” Such moments will do, you know? They'll just do.

Next came Christopher Lee tormented by his witchcraft-practising daughter (further misunderstandings of voodoo lore, here) in a story which suffered a little as a result of slightly wooden acting on the part of the child actor. Nyree Dawn Porter, though, was excellent as her nurse/teacher, and Mr. Lee delivered, as usual. I always find that he delivers. Only, in this case, he delivered as the victim rather than the tormentor. Do you know what we call that, friends? Range.

Finally came Jon Pertwee the Great playing Gruff Rhys Jones playing Christopher Lee: A veteran horror actor with a voice like bitter cake. His role involved a monologue concerning the lacking state of modern horror. This was something of a revelation for me: Perhaps it's always been the case that people have despaired over the state of their generation's horror films. A story as old as time itself, perhaps. But all the “classics” I've been watching have been – well, excellent. To an extent.

This is good news. It means that all the forgettable throwaway trash that dominates today will soon be – well, forgotten. Only the excellent will still be watched decades from now.

I think.

Affairs ended in the same way they always end in these Amicus portmanteau affairs – with the sinister star of the framing narrative addressing the audience directly and hinting that they – that's you! - might be next.

Only this wasn't as chilling a proclamation as it usually is. Take Vault of Horror (or was it Tales From The Crypt?) in which people apparently just stepped straight from their lives into inescapable doom.

To be told that that could happen to you is quite a disquieting thought. But it's comparatively easy to ensure that the fates that befell the cast of The House That Dripped Blood don't come to you. All you have to do is make sure you never, ever, ever rent the house in question.

That, however, might be easier said than done. The library alone would make the place irresistible for many.

2012 Film Challenge #9 - Beowulf

2012-01-25T12:44:00.000-08:00

Well, at first I was downright outraged by the amount of crucifixes on show. To place the earliest surviving piece of (pagan) Old English fiction in a Christian context is nothing short of an insult to those of us who wrote their BA (Hons) Dissertation on this period. I demand historical accuracy from my motion-captured blockbusters, dammit.

But this ain't no ordinary motion-captured blockbuster. This one was scripted by Neil Gaiman and his bezzy-mezzy Roger Avary. Based on the brilliant notion that Beowulf was an unreliable narrator (what did happen in Grendel's cave?), they've transformed him into a flawed, tragic hero – with Grendel as a misunderstood outcast and Grendel's mum as the only thing a lot of people will remember once they stop watching.

And it makes for a fascinating romp of tremendous depth beyond that I've come to expect in films of this ilk. It's rare that films featuring a grizzly, beardy protagonist should “ask questions” and “deal with themes”.

But - there's always a “but”, isn't there? And it's always saved for last. I can only imagine how irritating that must be – the problem lies in the motion-capture approach to film-making. I haven't got a problem with the technique per se – I love The Polar Express, and I'm quite disappointed to have missed out on Tintin – it's just that, I've no idea at all what the point is.

CGI has advanced to such a terrifying level that, in many cases, it's no longer possible to tell the difference between what's real and what's not. It's only when too much is used that the lines stop blurring. So, when absolutely everything is crafted by computers, absolutely everything looks artificial. No matter how excellent the writing, the film's power is thus greatly diminished and, with every passing year, it will unfortunately look more and more dated.

So why did they use this technique in the first place? With a budget $150,000,000, it's not as if it was used as a money-saving technique. And the Lord of the Rings films have shown us that stories of this nature can be brought to the screen using real, physical actors (rather than just their movements).

It's a terrible shame when one of what must be the only three poems that will ever make it to the screen (alongside The Night Before Christmas and The Raven) will ultimately fail on account of the very thing which was supposed to make it stand out in the first place. All the elements here are perfect. It's just let down by the delivery.

2012 Film Challenge #8 - Boo

2012-01-24T14:13:00.000-08:00

We've moved into a fantastic new house. One of the best things about it is that we now have a crystal clear signal on The Horror Channel. This means that I can now watch the dubious delights they have on offer without having to tolerate judderiness and jerkiness and I don't know what.

So to usher in what will be, I know, an awesome new phase of my life, I watched a film called Boo.

Boo featured a haunted, derelict asylum located just across the road from a haunted, derelict funeral parlour. The two were connected by an underground tunnel inhabited by an eviscerated zombie dog, who happened to be the highlight of the whole film.

You had a group of thirtysomething teenagers spending a night in this derelict asylum. The men had sent a friend ahead to rig the place full of scares in order to scare the girls. Of course, before long there were a few instances of “I didn't do that” or “but I'm over here” or something – then they were locked in on the haunted third floor with a little girl and that.

And one of the ladies had a sort of psychic link with the asylum. The overall feel was thus somewhere between the nineties remakes of The Haunting and The House on Haunted Hill.
And it did have some nearly-brilliant moments. Such as the aforementioned sinewy dog, and a floating clown who had distended maggots instead of feet.

Unfortunately, the acting, effects, sets and soundtrack all had a sort of daytime television feel to them. You know those cheap washes of sound which stand in the place of music in contemporary low-budget films? They really do ruin the mood, don't they?

Good, but not great.

Watchable, but not rewatchable.

That said, should I ever find myself flicking idly through channels and it happens to be on, I probably would watch it again. I'm only human.

2012 Film Challenge #7 - Plague of The Zombies

2012-01-22T03:20:00.000-08:00

It was almost a rite of passage watching this one, as a still from it in one of our visual horror encyclopedias caused I don't know how many nightmares between the ages of six and twelve.

The zombies in this film are terrifying. Inconsistent, but terrifying. Big, wide, dead eyes – leering grins, banshee shrieks, lumbering strangling intent and peeling chalky flesh. The scene where they emerge from the ground and advance inexorably is literally the stuff of nightmares.

And yet, they're unfortunately underused. And, when they are used, it's in a ridiculous Scooby Doo “I would have got away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids” sort of way.

See, our slimy squire owns a tin-mine in which conditions are so bad that nobody will work there. So, rather than addressing the issue head on with a couple of surveyors and a snag list, he decides that his best course of action is to begin a clandestine operation which sees him murdering locals and reanimating them as zombie slaves.

He does this using a frankly insulting misunderstanding of Voodoo in his cavernous cellar. He uses his Caribbean servants as tribal drummers (forcing them to dress in offensive “native” outfits which probably aren't native to anywhere in the world) and allows for his insufferable toady fox-hunting friends to whip their undead workforce indiscriminately.

Luckily, we have an aged curmudgeonly professor on hand to sort everything out. But what we're really witnessing is the worst possible weekend getaway to Cornwall. What was supposed to be a visit to an old friend with a bit of fishing on the side swiftly becomes a plodding rigmarole of death, funerals, grave-robbing, attempted gang-rape and amateur investigations.

Worse is that most of the action is supposed to take place at night, yet they don't even seem to try and make things look dark. A creepy midnight graveyard scene is completely ruined by a background of cloudy blue sky.

But did I mention how marvellously creepy these zombies are? This was Hammer's only attempt at a zombie film. Presumably it didn't receive too good a reception. Which is a dreadful shame. They must have made a dozen vampire films, but we have but this on which to judge their undead potential. Imagine what unholy power could have been wrought had these guys been cast in less ridiculous surroundings?

Sigh.

2012 Film Challenge #6 - To The Devil a Daughter

2012-01-22T03:16:00.000-08:00

I tried to watch this a few days ago on The Horror Channel, but the signal wasn't strong enough. Can you believe that?

Luckily, not one week later an opportunity arose to dip into a Hammer Boxset. So we did, and we started like this. It was unfinished business.

And it really wasn't bad, you know. Based on a Dennis Wheatley novel (who I've never read, but have heard described as “abhorrent” and “odious”), it felt lacking in depth and cohesion. But Christopher Lee was in it, coming across as a sort of deranged Christian version of Lord Summerisle. Scary intensity, his leering grin at the bloodbath satanic birth wasn't the sort of thing you'd want looming over you.

Then there was Richard Widmark – an occult novelist with a great dockside flat – who was working really hard to save the day in a meddlesome above-his-station Diagnosis Murder sort of way.

I can imagine that films like this reaped a lot of stick for glorifying Satanism. Well, I didn't get that at all. The lies, subterfuge and dark rituals were terrifyingly potent – I doubt anyone would emerge from a viewing with fresh evil intent.

But perhaps that's more owing to the rushed “will this do” ending? Throughout we're haunted by a weird sinewy foetus puppet who, after crawling into a girl's vagina, is sort of forgotten about. Then things get suddenly psychedelic, a bloody stone acquires magic bullet qualities and we're done.

Roll credits. Did we miss something?

What will become of poor Anna now? After all, she was groomed for a life of Satanism and, with a throw of a rock, her entire world has just come crashing down around her. Now what? Is she going to be content living as a secretary-with-benefits for a creepy American pulp novelist?

Well, for me that will always be a dream. In the meantime, we have a film which contains one of those lines which will be forever etched into my memory as a sterling example of the knife-edge that can exist between the sublime and the ridiculous:

“With your permission, I would like to read the grimoir of Asteroth.”

Oh, yes please.

2012 Film Challenge #5 - The Howling

2012-01-22T03:13:00.000-08:00

Clunky technology, an abundance of moustaches, that hazy washed-out neon soaked feel – everything in this film tasted strongly of orange-flavoured milk.

This 80s sheen, I found, served to overpower a lot of the visceral grittiness necessary for films like this to work. It felt slightly anaemic, as a result – despite the marvellous woodland beachhead setting which could, with slightly different production values, have made for a wonderfully earthy Friday the 13th sort of atmosphere.

But still. This is less “missed opportunity” than a perfectly decent product of its time. It was full of glorious little details – like the morgue worker who leaves his sandwiches next to the brain he's dissecting, the amazing occult book shop (which I really want to visit) which comes complete with a couple of disdainful nuns, and that truly mouthwatering closing shot.

And the werewolf transformation scene is certainly impressive. It's not as good as An American Werewolf in London, but Christ, it makes the Twilight Saga look like an embarrassment for humanity in general (but then, what doesn't?).

Thinking about it, it's about on par with Michael Jackson's transformation in the Thriller video.

But why our heroine stops to watch rather than bolting immediately is just one of those things.

2012 Film Challenge #4 - Women In Love

2012-01-15T04:23:00.000-08:00

They're currently doing a big old tribute to the oeuvre of Ken Russell over at Mounds & Circles. It's coming across as a lot more learned, charming and, let's face it, sexier than I could ever hope to be. But no matter. I was never in a position to steal their thunder, so here we go.

Women in Love was preceded by an affectionate documentary on The Man Himself which proclaimed him to have exactly the sort of restlessly creative impish nature I cherish in so many. Clearly, I need to explore his work in much greater depth.

Now, I've already seen Tommy and The Devils. Women in Love completes the triptych necessary for me to start taking a film-maker very seriously indeed.

But is it wise to take Ken Russell at all seriously? For clearly, as his career progressed, he began to take himself less and less so.

Yet it's impossible to not take seriously something that moves you in so deep and profound a way, surely?

D.H Lawrence seemed to be very concerned about the struggles of the human spirit against the stifling influence of industry, progress and technology. In Women in Love, Mr. Russell demonstrates this struggle in so subtle and elegant a manner that already I feel that any cry of “genius” is more than justified.

The scene everyone will always think of when considering this film is that in which Oliver Reed and Alan Bates grapple naked in a desperate attempt to find something tangible in their muffled, claustrophobic world. Lit almost entirely by the glow of the fireplace, the scene has a visceral sensual feel which I found transcended any and all homoerotic giggles that may have transpired.

Afterwards, glistening with sweat, they were finally feeling. Finally living rather than existing. But what does Mr. Reed go and do? He switches the light on. Suddenly the entire scene is bathed in cold, harsh, unfeeling electricity. The humanity has been eclipsed by technology – literally at the flick of the switch.

This is nothing short of cinematic poetry, and such flourishes were all over the shop. The term “visual feast” was surely coined to describe films such as this.

Add to this the fact that most of it was filmed in and around Belper – where we're moving in about nine days! - and you're onto a film with such weight and gravity that I can already feel a new obsession growing.

2012 Film Challenge #3 - Kull The Conqueror

2012-01-13T13:50:00.000-08:00

It was the golden age of video. Our local (Pick A Flick – gods amongst men – upon whom later) had a three for two offer going. You rented two videos and got the third free. We watched a lot of videos, my brother and I: We watched a lot of videos.

The thing is, whilst we'd watch almost anything, by and large all of these videos were a product of their time. They were the sort of films which could be showed to future generations in order to explain as to exactly what the 90s were like.

I'm getting increasingly nostalgic for the 90s. They're often remembered as quite a boring decade but, by jove, compared to these days, they were so beautifully innocent.

Now, don't get me wrong, Kull The Conqueror isn't a good film by my or anybody's standards. However, I've watched it twice over the past few days and I can't shake this feeling:

This is exactly the sort of film that we might have once taken home from Pick A Flick.

We never did, of course (you wouldn't be reading this, if we had! It wouldn't count as a fresh film for inclusion in my challenge). But we watched what felt and feels like thousands of films like this.

It's a brash, camp, unashamedly naff nineties source & sorcery & sandals & swords gay comedy epic.

Kull The Conqueror becomes king somehow, and sets about freeing slaves and that. This upsets a lot of people, so they resurrect an evil sorceress to destroy him. But then she acts the dreadful turncoat and decides to populate the world with her demon brood. So suddenly Mr. Unpopular Barbarian King is indispensable. He has to get some god's breath to put a stop to all this. Or something.

Look, I didn't pay too much attention to the plot. After two viewings, it's still the case that all that matters is the amount of old-fashioned nostalgic fun to be had.

It's Fifth Element. It's Demolition Man. It's Xena Warrior Princess. It's Robin Hood: King of Thieves. It's Judge Dredd. It's dated terribly and, as such, it's essential viewing for you, me and everyone.

Case in point? The new warrior king Kull has a eunuch attendant who wears make-up and sort of blunders his way through everything.

I've not seen such a comedy sidekick since Steven Brand in The Scorpion King. And that was ten years ago.

Watching this film, you can sort of feel your horizons contracting. They really don't make them like this any more. And, whilst some would emit a snarky “good!” at this, I couldn't disagree more.

2012 Film Challenge #2 - California Man/Encino Man

2012-01-07T06:12:00.000-08:00

In the 1990s, Brendan Fraser starred in at least three “out of time and place” romps. We chortled as he swapped one jungle for another in George of the Jungle. When emerging from his anti-commie time capsule in Blast From the Past, he stole our hearts with little more than a collection of priceless baseball cards, 1950s chivalry and a deep appreciation of the finer points of Perry Como.

But before all that, he starred alongside a bumbling Sean Astin as a caveman who, after a millennia of frozen stasis, is defrosted - retaining all of his critical faculties ready for a none-more-nineties party in California.

It’s dated quite horribly and pretty much comes across as “1990s: The Movie”. However, when you consider the atmosphere of terror, paranoia and blandness which has so far prevailed throughout the 21st century, the lurid extremes of the 90s seem wholly innocent, adorable and – dare I say it – preferable.

The ending’s quite inexplicable and will leave anybody not attuned to nineties jargon utterly baffled. It’s fun, though. But where does it rate on the old “Brendan Frasier Anachronistic Nineties Comedy” scale?

Well, it’s not as good as George of the Jungle and not nearly as good as Blast From the Past – the undisputed king of this particular niche. A close yet distinct third, then. Good, but not great.

Happy New Year/Film Challenge 2011/Film Challenge 2012/Bruno

2012-01-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

In 2011 I challenged myself to watch 100 films I'd never seen before. It didn't prove to be much of a challenge. I already had 100 in the bag by September and, though I'd stopped counting by early November, the final tally must have breached 150 when the amount of films I watched over Christmas are taken into account.

This year I'm challenging myself to watch another 100 fresh films. But this time, the actual watching isn't the challenge. No, last year I found the viewing itself to be nothing short of mind-expanding. I exposed myself to what must have been some of the strangest images ever set to film (the strangest of which was, without a doubt, the sight of Warren Ellis clutching a Tesco bag). I'd be stupid not to do it again this year.

But no, the challenge this year won't be the watching so much as the writing.

Though I tried to write about each successive film last year, I made the mistake of doing so in the form of vast impenetrable blocks.

This year, the number of films viewed isn't important (but let's say another 100 for the sake of cohesion) so much as the need to write about them afterwards. One at a time, one after the other.

So, let's start with the first fresh film I saw in the year that was (is) 2012 – Bruno!

I saw it on New Year's Day and thought it was quite good.

Yeah, that's all I planned on saying.

Look, if I'm to blog about every single film I see, I can hardly afford to ramble now, can I?

But might I add that whilst the structure was very similar to that of Borat, Bruno had much bigger balls – and he wasn't afraid to show them.

He who riles an arena full of burly cage-fighting fans into a homophobic furore before passionately kissing and stripping a man right in front of them is no doubt a dangerous, dangerous man. I'm so very glad he's on our side.

So there you go. One down, 99 to go.

And for those who're interested, here's the list I made of all the films I watched in 2011. It's not the full list as I stopped counting around November time as it occurred to me that I had already completed the challenge and that I probably never would get round to writing about the remainder:

1. The X-Files: I Want To Believe (06/01)
2. The Weatherman (07/01)
3. 127 Hours (08/01)
4. Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (08/01)
5. Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging (09/01)
6. Run, Fatboy, Run (09/01)
7. Constantine (12/01)
8. True Romance (23/01)
9. The King's Speech (29/01)
10. Horror Express (9/02)
11. They Live (10/02)
12. Never Let Me Go (13/02)
13. The Royal Tenenbaums (17/02)
14. Fantastic Mr. Fox (19/02)
15. Where The Wild Things Are (19/02)
16. Coraline (19/02)
17. Shine A Light (21/02)
18. American Pop (25/02)
19. Crumb (28/02)
20. The Fog (03/03)
21. Lifeforce (04/03)
22. The Abominable Dr. Phibes (05/03)
23. Story of One Crime (10/03)
24. The Glass Harmonica (10/03)
25. Tale of Tales (10/03)
26. Ghostwatch (14/03)
27. Fears Of The Dark (16/03)
28. Infamous (27/03)
29. Lonesome Jim (28/03)
30. The Big Easy (04/04)
31. Submarine (05/04)
32. District 9 (06/04)
33. Bottle Rocket (09/04)
34. Vault Of Horror (09/04)
35. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (13/04)
36. Monsters (15/04)
37. Factory Farmed (15/04)
38. The Constant Gardener (17/04)
39. Hostage (18/04)
40. Mimic (22/04)
41. Zatoichi (29/04)
42. A Bothersome Man (03/05)
43. World Of Glory (03/05)
44. Girl Chewing Gum (03/05)
43. The Adventures of Mark Twain (06/05)
44. Shrek Forever After (08/05)
45. Gorillas In The Mist (08/05)
46. Lou Reed's Berlin (13/05)
47. Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (15/05)
48. The Happiness of the Katakuris (15/05)
49. Mirrors (23/05)
50. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tide (24/05)
51. Valerie & Her Week of Wonders (26/05)
52. Persepolis (07/06)
53. Tropic Thunder (09/06)
54. Step Brothers (09/06)
55. Romance & Cigarettes (11/06)
56. Monster Squad (11/06)
57. The Sea Shall Not Have Them (12/06)
58. The Boys In Blue (12/06)
59. Follow A Star (12/06)
60. Definitely, Maybe (12/06)
61. Monster-In-Law (12/06)
62. Secret Window (20/06)
63. Hotel Chevalier (29/06)
64. The Darjeeling Ltd (29/06)
65. Conspiracy Theory (04/07)
66. Pitch Black (05/07)
67. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows pt. 1 (06/07)
68. Ladies Of The House (08/07)
69. The Ladykillers (08/07)
70. Dark Water (09/07)
71. Bridesmaids (10/07)
72. How To Train Your Dragon (10/07)
73. Grown Ups (11/07)
74. Wizards (11/07)
75. Fantastic Planet (12/07)
76. Les Escargots (12/07)
77. How Wang-Fo Was Saved (12/07)
78. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows pt. 2 (18/07)
79. A Town Called Panic (19/07)
80. Mirrormask (20/07)
81. Iron Man (21/07)
82. Happy-Go-Lucky (21/07)
83. (500) Days Of Summer (23/07)
84. The Tree Of Life (23/07)
85. Spirited Away (27/07)
86. Battleship Potemkin (03/08)
87. Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason (04/08)
88. Good Luck To The Barley Mow (05/08)
89. The Haunting (06/08)
90. The Seventh Seal (06/08)
91. Never Been Kissed (10/08)
92. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (17/08)
93. Gangbusters (22/08)
94. Beyond Image (30/08)
95. A Short Vision (30/08)
96. Street of Crocodiles (30/08)
97. 13 Cantos of Hell (30/08)
98. The Universe of Dermot Simm (30/08)
99. Whistle & I'll Come to You (30/08)
100. One Day (04/09)
101. Mission Impossible III (05/09)
102. Playtime (11/09)
103. The Tell-Tale Heart (24/09)
104. Jane Eyre (28/09)
105. Stand By Me (01/10)
106. Tadpole (07/10)
107. The Gay Divorcee (08/10)
108. The Importance of Being Earnest (08/10)
109. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (08/10)
110. No Country For Old Men (08/10)
111. The Inbetweeners Movie (12/10)
112. Powers of Ten (13/10)
113. The Haunted House (13/10)
114. The Mad Doctor (13/10)
115. Lumpkin The Pumpkin (18/10)
116. Dispicable Me (21/10)
117. All Tomorrow's Parties (21/10)
118. Blithe Spirirts (23/10)
119. Metropolis (24/10)
120. The River of No Return (25/10)
121. Brief Encounter (26/10)
122. Spider (29/10)
123. The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (01/11)
124. Viy (02/11)

Three Of My Favourite Albums of 2011

2011-12-16T16:41:00.000-08:00

I decided several weeks ago that this year I would not attempt a “Favourite Albums of 2011” series of blogs.

Three reasons:

1. Pretty much every single one of my “favourite bands” has, this year, released an absolutely stunning album of unbelievable quality. Not only would it be utterly exhausting to wax lyrical about each of them, it's also the case that in The King of Limbs, The Whole Love, Mylo Xyloto, Kiss Each Other Clean, Ravedeath 1972, Far Side Virtual, Waves of the Random Sea, Circuital, Lula, Helplessness Blues, Ashes & Fire, Collapse Into Now etc. etc. etc. - well, there seems to be about ninety different contenders for “Album of the Year” - I just couldn't. I just couldn't. “The album” isn't dead. It's so alive that to write about how strong a year this has been for that particular form is just beyond me.

2. My stance with this blog has always been one of reactionary positivity. The result has been a style of writing which comes across as a defence of my love for most things in the face of a world which seems to distrust, scorn and ostracise anybody who dares to suggest that perhaps everything isn't so terrible. This often extends to little more than criticism of criticism – an approach which is horrible to write and – I'm guessing – unbearably tedious to read. Which leads me to:

3. I simply don't enjoy reading or writing about music any more.

Yep, I think I like music far too much to read or write about it any more.

And that is NOT to suggest that all who can write (or read) about music are somehow less passionate am I. Probably it's just the case that they all have thicker skin than me.

Good for them. But, as far as I'm concerned, I started a personal war against the snarks and the cynics and the snarks and the cynics won.

I can't beat them. But I think I'd rather die than join them.

And yet, and yet:

Out of habit – and perhaps as a cleansing means of reminding me of how out of touch I am (which felt strangely comforting) – I have read a lot of end of year lists.

Of course I avoided The Quietus and The Collapse Board like I'd cross the road to avoid a pissed-up shadow-boxing lecherous defamed and deformed porn-star encountered on the street. But – whilst I've enjoyed those I did read like a lapsing junky on the brink of cold turkey might enjoy one last hit – three albums which have, for me, more or less defined 2011 have been notable by their unforgivable absence throughout.

So what will be - for the time-being at least - my final attempt at writing about music is just an effort to redress the balance. These albums are too good to go completely unmentioned. And, even if their only mention is to be found on my small and inconsequential corner of the internet, at least the silence will thus be that little bit less deafening overall.

So, here we go, then. For want of a better introduction, my three favourite albums of the year:

Jonny – Jonny

Norman Blake I acknowledge as one of the most consistent and beloved British songwriters of the past couple of decades. Euros Childs is something of a hero of mine. This year, they got together and recorded an album – apparently the fruits of a historical tour undertaken by Teenage Fanclub and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. The former are still something of a fringe interest for me. But, with every passing summer, they become that little bit more important. The latter, though, are nothing less than one of the major hubs of my musical landscape around which a lot of other acts orbit.

I think it says a lot about the prolific genius of Euros Childs that he recorded an entire solo album – probably his fourteenth in two years – whilst waiting for the Jonny sessions to begin. It's not quite the case that he can do no wrong, but I've long since realised that everything he does is always, apart from anything else, reliably interesting and really, really fun.

Jonny is therefore interesting and a lot of fun as a matter of course. But – and I'm not above attributing this to the melodic prowess of Norman Blake – it also happens to be beautiful, endearing, marvellous and genuinely warming throughout.

It's generally the case that every album I regard as “essential” didn't really connect with me on the first listen. It's no coincidence that the most enduring of albums only reveal their treasures on repeated listens. However – to judge this album on its own terms – from the outset it was a Goldmine. Every single track has something to recommend about it – be it a timeless melody, an insistent, addictive hook, a surprising middle-eight, a curious and amusing lyrical twist or an extended foray into spaced-out atmospherics.

Yes, some tracks are so short that they could never have clicked immediately, but even on the first listen I can still remember being struck by how – from You Was Me through to Bread – you had an incredible run of five flawless gems of songs – the sort of songs so simple, honest and beautiful that they could have been written by anyone in any year – and yet – at the same time – they simply couldn't have been written by anyone else.

Jonny is sweet, simple, addictive and was probably a lot of fun to make. Which, of course, also makes it a lot of fun to listen to.

Gruff Rhys – Hotel Shampoo

I don't think I've ever heard a song which uses a sample quite like Shark Infested Waters does. It opens with the sound of a radio being detuned. We hear snatches of songs and snippets of melody, but the listener – whose ears we're apparently channelling – can't seem to settle. But eventually we stumble across a very agreeable little rhythm which is so worthy of our attention that it shifts sharply into focus and becomes the song.

And the entire song is built around this little captured iota of another song. And, as song's go, it's perhaps the first since Van Der Graaf Generator's Killer to be sung from the perspective of a hungry shark driven by raw animal instinct. It undulates like waves on the shore and – in an amazing master touch – right at the end order is restored as that insistent rhythm settles back into the gorgeous Burt Bacharach standard from which it was lifted.

This is a song, then, which doesn't try to hide the fact that it exists on the wings of another. This, in conjunction with the detuned radio conceit, creates an overall feel for the album that follows which couldn't be more appropriate – this is music which is so special that it feels like you've stumbled across it by accident whilst idly cycling through the radio waves. I'm terrified to even nudge the dial in case it's lost forever.

And then comes Honey All Over – a more perfect summation of the golden hazy joys of summer has seldom been evoked in sound. Such a title, indeed, goes in a long way to describe the irresistible voice of Gruff Rhys. Even in these bleak winter months it's as soothing as a syrupy hot totty on a frazzled flu-inflected throat and mind.

But all of it I'm afraid just leaves room for the insanely divine – the heaven-sent miracle that is Patterns of Power. I'm never really comfortable with defining entire albums by just one song, but I'm sorry – this lysergic, euphoric, fuzzy life-affirming psychedelic britpop sound is, for me, the sound of happiness itself. No other song this year has succeeded in inspiring anything less than pure unbridled glad-to-be-breathing joy than this mini-masterpiece.

Which by default might make Hotel Shampoo the album of the year.

But, in a year of masterpieces, I cannot and will not go that far.

British Sea Power – Valhalla Dancehall

Earlier this year, British Sea Power supported The Flaming Lips when they played Jodrell Bank. Originally, Brian Cox was to provide keyboard duties – the idea being, of course, that those long-untapped skills the eminent scientist developed in his time with D:REAM would really add something to the spectral wonder these gentle genii are capable of generating.

It didn't happen in the end. But it always seemed so fitting a union. For many of Valhalla Dancehall's widescreen epics would be perfectly suited for soundtracking those shots which are to be found in all of Bri Bri's shows – those bits where he walks around such panoramic landscapes as resemble alien landscapes looking utterly spellbound.

Which is my long-winded way of saying that Valhalla Dancehall is spellbinding throughout it's lengthy yet still short-lived runtime.

But an album of meandering soundscapes this certainly is not. No, British Sea Power are a rock band, and, like many rock bands, they choose to open their album with an immeasurably satisfying guitar chord which gives way to building, thumping drums and an addictive driving riff in a song which contains a call and response chorus and no small amounts of “Whooo!”. This could be described as “rock by numbers”, and “rock by numbers” could be construed as an almighty slight against them were it not for the fact that a) this just means that it's an energising serum of brilliance and b) few other songs have been so prescient in their defence of libraries and their proclamations of sexy protesting.

Yes. Besides all, this album's relevant.

British Sea Power are one of the finest and most fascinating of bands to ever emerge from anywhere. Like all the best bands, they exude not just a sound, but a feel – and theirs feels like the biting salty air of the British coast; the peaty sting of aged whiskey; the distant cawing of endangered wildfowl.

Long may be their reign.

That's all.

UnChristmassy Things Which Make Me Feel Unaccountably Christmassy

2011-12-12T13:22:00.000-08:00

Sufjan Stevens's EPs. Home Alone. The Snowman. The Night Before Christmas. The Nightmare Before Christmas. That Coca-Cola advert. I love Christmas – and some things make me feel Christmassy because they are so damn Christmassy.

Some things, though, induce that Christmassy feel throughout the year – no matter when they're approached – even though they have nothing at all to do with the festive period.

Of course, the reason lies in association. I first encountered these things at Christmas, so they'll always be associated with the most wonderful time of year. It's the same with many, many things.

However, these things aren't just unChristmassy. They're so far removed from what Christmas is and should be about that they're probably powerfully potent in their ability to make some – I'm sure – feel downtroddenly unfestive.

Here, then, are some decidedly unChristmassy things which make me feel unaccountably Christmassy.

Blood

Not the red stuff per se – more the 1997 PC FPS which contains said sangria by the bucket-full – only, the bucket's actually a haemophiliac heart in the middle of a botched transfusion. This game's violent, but not Manhunt violent. It's more Sam Raimi, early-Peter Jackson violent – in that it's so over-the-top vicious as to be ridiculous.

Yes, there are strong satanic overtones, but the tongue's firmly in cheek as you blast your way through pandemonium carnivals, haunted houses, mountains of madness and hospitals using such implements of destruction as voodoo dolls, dynamite and napalm launchers.

Yes, a lot of the levels take place in the snow (or by roaring fires on which chestnuts could comfortably roast), but consider that you can decapitate zombies and use their heads as footballs – and that the eviscerated remains of women tied-under water and left to the mercy of giant piranhas are not uncommon sights – no, it hardly embodies seasonal goodwill.

But it does for me. Sorry.

Mastodon – Blood Mountain

This, the 2006 epic from the hairy, scary genii – is probably generally loathed by the majority of the metal community. As a lot of the vocals are sung rather than screamed (the bastards), it succeeded in attracting a much larger non-metal audience to their enthralling visceral thrills. Like me. Hello!

It's a concept album about a mountaineering jaunt for a crystal skull. It conjures up a foreboding landscape of dark forests, sleeping giants, mortal soil and colonies of Birchmen. And it really does ruddy rock in an almost overwhelmingly technically accomplished way. You can lose yourself in this music – just like our hero does in the landscape on his heroic, none-more-manly quest.

Yes, a lot of Christmas 2006 was spent listening to this on a big pair of headphones as I sat sequestered in the corner.

See? It's not just the brutal content which makes this an unChristmassy Christmassy treat for me. It's also the fact that I made something of an antisocial ne'er-do-well of myself in enjoying it for the first time that cements it's status as a Christmas tradition of questionable festive value.

Day of the Dead

For children, Christmas is very much about the presents. For a lot of adults, it's about the drink. For me, it's mainly about - well, I don't have the space or the time to divulge here exactly what Christmas means to me. Maybe later. Maybe next week.

But a lot of the appeal these days resides in the fact that Christmas presents an ideal opportunity to binge on films. There's always a decent marathon or two broadcast on the terrestrial channels – quality film after quality film – often back-to-back in a merciless “how are we to ever get anything done” solid wall of cinematic magic. Add to this the new DVDs and boxsets with which I and all else are often gifted and it's no wonder that last year I achieved a new record of 14 films watched in the space of three days.

And I enjoyed every single one of them.

They're seldom Christmas films, of course. But that's not the point. They're family films and are thus enjoyed with family. On subsequent viewings I'm therefore reminded of the context in which I first saw them. Christmas! And thus, I feel Christmassy.

But amongst the joy and not unseasonable warmth are a few strands of genuine heart-stopping terror which are more suited to a viewing two months previously. And yet, still I'm reminded of that initial warming festive context. And, like associating chair legs and cockroaches with sexual desire, it ain't right. Ain't natural. Ain't right.

Day of the Dead is such a film. It features possibly the most famous disembowelment in cinematic history – but the bit that really distresses me is the moment where that guy has his head literally pulled off. He screams as it's wrenched away, and in one of the most disturbing moments I've ever witnessed in any film, the pitch of his scream increases as his head is pulled further from his body.

And this atrocity – this bleak, dystopian misanthropic madness – makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I'm not being funny when I ask – what the hell is wrong with me?

The Great 2011 Film Challenge Part 4

2011-10-27T04:58:00.000-07:00

Ooh, get me: challenging myself to watch 150 films I've never seen before over the course of 2011 and writing about those I do watch. No, I don't get out much.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three.

Now, Part Four:

Monster In Law (12/06)

This film shows its hand very early on through showing its hand. I'm talking cards here. Specifically, the tarot. Near the start, somebody does a reading. Films very rarely do the tarot justice (Death hardly ever means death, for instance), but I think that this was the worst on-screen tarot reading I've ever seen. They played it like snap. Now, there might well be a method of reading which does indeed involve throwing down one card after another and, if so, I retract my criticism. But, this being a J Lo vehicle, I doubt they spent any longer than forty-three seconds in their research. Am I judging the entire film by this? Yes. Yes I am.

Secret Window (20/06)

Written by Steven King. Because it was written by Steven King, the protagonist's a writer. And, because the protagonist's a writer, I sort of identify with him. Furthermore, because he's played by Johnny Depp, I really cannot help but like him. However, anybody who's seen any more than one film before will be able to guess the "twist" about ten minutes in. Still, it's quite enjoyable, and his house is boss. And, once things get sinister, things get really sinister. It was written by Steven King, after all. He knows how to write.

Hotel Chevalier (29/06)

A short film which acts as an introduction and a companion to The Darjeeling Ltd, this doesn't make much sense unless you follow it immediately with a viewing of the main feature. That said, it's as engaging and evocative as anything by Wes Anderson, with the added bonus of being the most erotic thing he's ever done, too.

The Darjeeling Ltd (29/06)

This year Wes Anderson's become so very close to completing my holy trinity of directors. That's right: He's very very nearly in a state to be rated by me alongside David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick asone of my very favourite film-makers. Everything he's done (for I've now seen it all) has been slightly odd but very affecting – and everything looks beautiful. His films are like dog-eared Penguin paperbacks: rough around the edges and a little faded, but crammed full of such things as make life worth living. This one, apart from anything else, made me want to visit India. Hell, it just made me want to travel with monogrammed luggage.

Conspiracy Theory (04/07)

Apparently, people haven't always thought of Mel Gibson as insane. Watching this, though, that's quite hard to understand. Of course, back then people would look at the neurotic gibbering lunatic on-screen and assume that he's just acting. These days, though, it's quite hard to watch without assuming that they've just set up a camera in his flat in order to follow his every move. This hasn't dated too well (it smells like the 90s), but it's nonetheless gripping and features a crazy interrogation scene with such images as have the power of being burned indelibly onto the retinas.

Pitch Black (05/07)
I don't know why, but I often feel sorry for Vin Diesel. Why do I often feel sorry for Vin Diesel? I shouldn't feel sorry for Vin Diesel. Vin Diesel, for one, doesn't feel sorry for Vin Diesel. It's just that, the Chronicles of Riddick came out, and Vin Diesel earnestly insisted that the whole saga would turn out to be this generation's Star Wars. It wasn't to be. I wish it had been, though. Heaven knows we need something to care about. And I think that's why I feel sorry for Vin Diesel. He doesn't quite seem to understand. Pitch Black I quite enjoyed, though. The darkness is so oppressive that it soon makes you forget about just how artificial everything looks when the sun's out. And those monsters are amazing.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows pt. 1 (06/07)

Though I've now sat through every Harry Potter film, I've can't admit to having enjoyed very many of them. This one, though, I enjoyed a lot. For the first time since The Prisoner of Azkaban it felt like a faithful adaptation of the book rather than a tired “will this do?”, and often things got brutal and devastating. The scene, at the start, in which Hermione erased herself from her parents' memories was incredibly powerful, as was the slow dance to Nick Cave later on. My faith was almost restored in the series as a whole, but it goes without saying that the books will always, always be better.

Ladies of the House (08/07)

An American made-for-TV affair in which three free-spirited, independent women do up a house for some reason. This leads to montage after montage of the women being free-spirited and independent whilst they strip wallpaper and move furniture. Their husbands are one-dimensional jokes (one's supportive, one's not. One didn't really have any lines) and there was an utterly cretinous bit in which one of the free-spirited, independent women went to a plumbing seminar. “Was that 'monkey wrench' with an O or a U?” she asked, simply because the writer's needed something ostensibly amusing for her to offer at that point. I was just sat there throughout saying “what the hell is this?”

The Ladykillers (08/07)

This was more like it. We're talking creepy Alec Guinness in Ealing rather than Tom Hanks in the deep south. Though I've not seen the remake, I cannot see how it could possibly live-up to this – Coen or no Coen. The sweet old woman is simply adorable – you can see why those crooks found it quite impossible to off her. That they had no difficulty at all in offing each other, though, was hilarious. Mr. Guinness shows his chops here through coming across as genuinely unhinged where many would simply ham it up.

Dark Water (09/07)

Being a remake of a Japanese horror, I was initially wary of this. I can't really abide remakes, because what's the point? This, though, was quite excellent. It wasn't really scary, because mainstream American horrors rarely are. It seems that either directors still think that flashing lights, and sudden noises are scary, or they're contractually obliged by their studios to include such tropes. Viewed as a drama dealing with divorce, motherhood and dark supernatural elements, though, this was really quite good. Apparently it's even better than the original, but on that I can't comment. It does feature Jason C. Reilly, though – so there will always be a place for it in my heart.

Bridesmaids (10/07)

The critical stance on this went full-circle really quickly. It was first identified as a genuinely funny bastion of modern comedy amongst such tired dross as The Hangover Part 2. Some predicted that it would usher-in a brave new era for women in comedy, whilst all seemed to agree that it was very, very good. But then everybody went to see it and everybody agreed that it was good. So, because there can never be such thing as something that's good because everybody thinks it's good, soon the “overrated” remarks began to pile-up to the extent that all seemed to forget something very important – this film is hilarious. Beyond that, though, it bravely, honestly and respectfully charts a woman's fall from grace into depression. It's been pointed out that this doesn't matter, as in true cinematic style, it all works out in the end. But sometimes we audiences need for things to all work out in the end. I certainly needed it that day.

How To Train Your Dragon (10/07)

There are a lot of CGI animated features being released these days. I've no idea why, but my default stance seems to be one of wary contempt. There's so many of them that they must all be bad, right? But then, time and again, I'm made to see the error of my judgement when I actually sit down to watch the things. I even enjoyed The Ant Bully. So when the film in question seems generally regarded to be not just a fine example of animation in general, but a fine example of cinema in general, I'm often overwhelmed. I was quite overwhelmed by this. On initial release a lot of people spoke about the epic scope of the 3D flying sections. Well, I saw in in 2D and on a small-screen, and I was still hooked. That there indicates that here we have an engaging storyline, loveable characters and a great script – you know, the elements that made up a good film before everybody got so hung-up on special effects. The best bit, though, was the dragons. They're basically nothing more than giant cats in their mannerisms and, as such, they're completely adorable.

Grown Ups (11/07)

An Adam Sandler film which didn't really have much of a plot beyond “five childhood friends go on holiday together when they're adults”. They bring their kids, though, and their kids are spoilt nightmares with overwhelming senses of entitlement. They pout and sulk whilst the grown ups have a whale of a time. It comes across, then, as a damning shaky finger pointed at today's video-game fixated generation and, as such, it's pretty sanctimonious. But I couldn't help but agree with these adults as they despaired over their children who seemed wholly adverse to the simple joys of life. And their simple joys were so infectious that it made me pine for such a weekend with my friends.

Wizards (11/07)

Despite the merciless slaughter of cute elfin creatures, the disturbing Nazi imagery, the fact that characters refer to each other variously as “slut” and “son of a bitch”; and, despite the fact that, apart from anything else, the overall message seems to be that sometimes it's necessary to murder siblings using dirty and underhanded means – despite all that – this is supposed to be a kid's film. One of the main characters – a fairy – walks around in a top so revealing that it's a wonder that her gigantic breasts don't escape from the flimsy fabric in which she's contained them – and our hero, Avatar, comes across as a sort of Jerry Garcia/Rodney Dangerfield hybrid. But in saying all of this I'm not complaining. This was incredible stuff. I'm reliably informed that it was all set to smash all box office records. But then Star Wars came out. Imagine how different our world today would have been if an entire generation of filmgoers were defined by this, rather than Star Wars.

Fantastic Planet (12/07)

Stoic and earnest sci-fi which somehow also manages to contain one of the most transcendentally dreamlike and downright strange atmospheres into which I've ever immersed myself. The fantastic planet in question is alien in the purest sense of the word – to find yourself there would be terrifying, but to observe the curious habits and rituals of its inhabitants would be endlessly fascinating. Great soundtrack, too.

Les Escargots (12/07)

A short piece by him what also made Fantastic Planet, this was crazy. After experimenting with such methods as balloons and pulleys, a farmer discovered that his tears could make his crops grow gigantic. But gigantic lettuce attracted gigantic snails - obviously – who proceeded to terrorise a local town. What was funny was the way the hapless inhabitants of this town still succumbed to the giant molluscs even though they literally moved at a snail's pace – less funny, though, was the somewhat disturbing manner in which the snails consumed or destroyed their prey. It ended ominously and outrageously with our friendly farmer taking a similar approach to his crop of carrots – with similarly horrifying results. Rabbits can run faster than snails.

How Wang-Fo Was Saved (12/07)

A further short film from our Fantastic Planet-creating hero, this one was far less out-there than the previous two. Nonetheless, though, it still had such an otherworldly quality about it to make it feel like a bleary dream. It dealt with a Chinese Emperor whose only respite during his lonely childhood were the transcendentally beautiful paintings of Wang-Fo. When he was finally able to see the world, though, he discovered that nothing was as beautiful in reality as it apparently was in the mind of Wang-Fo. So, being a wholly unreasonable despotic ruler, he condemned the poor painter to death. But how was Wang-Fo saved? Well, let's just say that his abilities to blend the real with the fantastic ultimately proved very useful.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 (18/07)

Even though this had the finest opening line of any film, ever (“I need to speak to the goblin”), this was not as good as part one. Whilst my relationship with the books has always been mutually tender and loving, I've never really got along with many of the films. With the exception of The Prisoner of Azkaban and the first part of The Deathly Hallows, each of the films seems to have been made simply for the sake of making a Harry Potter film. By necessity, enough detail is omitted from the films that, often, they just feel like they're going through the motions. This one, unfortunately, felt just like that. They were finishing the series because they had to finish the series. The end felt watered-down, anticlimactic – nothing like the satisfying final mouthful that was the book. And, speaking of which, more-so than ever before, anybody who's not read the book will have difficulty in understanding several parts.

A Town Called Panic (19/07)

It's Horse's birthday. When Cowboy and Indian accidentally order him six-million bricks for his present, it sets off a chain of events which sees them incarcerated in a giant robot penguin, visiting the centre of the earth, shopping at a supermarket at the bottom of the ocean and missing piano lesson after piano lesson. The whole thing operates on a very twisted logic and is, therefore, unmissable.

Mirrormask (20/07)

Written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Dave McKean, this was always going to be special. It looks like an animated version of one of Dave's Sandman covers; it stars Rob Brydon and Steven Fry and features beautifully whimsical music. The plot is deceptively simply and, overall, it comes across as a mid-nineties CBBC serial with particularly high production values. Whilst for some this won't be a good thing, for me it simply means that the whole thing exudes a cosy and comforting atmosphere like a warm living room on a Thursday evening after school – it's lashing down outside, you've recently discovered tea, the worst part of the week is over, it's nearly the weekend and there's something magical on TV.

More to follow? Why not.

Vote Unconsoled!

2011-10-20T06:05:00.000-07:00

I just listened to the full-album stream of Lulu.

Lou Reed + Metallica = Loutallica. But, thankfully, this sounds more like a Lou Reed album than a Metallica album. The first song I heard – The View – really didn't bode well: Its furious riffs don't gel with Lou's laid-back drawl, and it ends with James Hetfield screaming that he's a table.

But The View is by no means representative of the rest. The rest is very, very good – thematically similar to Berlin but with a sound more reminiscent of The Blue Mask, Ecstasy and the heavier bits of The Raven.

And ho yes, this is heavy – very heavy – in every sense of the word. Lou's lyrics are brutal like his Rock Minuet – but for perhaps the first time since Sister Ray, the intensity of the music matches that of the libretto.

Can I call the words a libretto? It was, after all, written for the stage.

Ultimately – and I never thought I'd say this, right – it seems that Lou Reed and Metallica were made for each other. Lulu is far better than I ever could have imagined.

But I got to thinking (Carrie Bradshaw I am) – here we have an album of dark intonations backed by the heaviest of heavy metal. Yes, I got to thinking. Specifically, I got to thinking about another band. A band who went their separate ways many years ago; whose sheer creative force set fire to the sky itself and burned a deep trench somewhere near Southport which hasn't stopped burning for almost six years.

Yes: I speak of a little band called The Unconsoled.

The Unconsoled were like a mistake made by God himself. Their time on this planet wasn't very long, but for the duration of their brief and brutal existence, all who looked on sort of winced and said “what the hell is that?”

There were five people in The Unconsoled. Alex “The Doctor” played the drums. Together with Jake's stilt-walking bass, they formed a formidable rhythm section often affectionately referred to as “The Cushions From Kent”.

Two-pronged guitar assault came from “The Bastards of War” - James and Eddie, who perfected a style of playing which owed more to troop movements than it did conventional guitar technique.

It's worth noting that there were originally three layers of distorted mettle. There was once a demigod called David who was so proud of his white Stratocaster that no-one else was ever allowed to even spend time in the same room as it – lest their moisture attack its beautiful sheen. This made rehearsals very difficult, so he later parted from the benevolent fold of The Unconsoled muttering that it was a “stupid name anyway.” He wanted for the band to be called The Edelweiss Pirates.

There was a singer, too – but he couldn't sing. Instead he intoned rhythmically.

The Unconsoled rehearsed in an attic lit by a red-lightbulb in Jake's house on Friday nights. The walls were adorned with pictures of Pete Doherty and Carl Barat. They couldn't afford much in the way of a PA system, and the singer didn't exactly boast a powerhouse voice. The music therefore had to cease completely every time the vocals came in. This led to a unique style which relied upon staccato stabs of metal brutality punctuated by fey sixth-form attempts at hip beat poetry.

Also, nobody in The Unconsoled quite understood music. This led to a style which would later affectionately be described as “flexi-rock”. Flexi-rock allows for the songs to last for as long – or as short -as The Unconsoled desired. Nowhere was this technique better realised than in their magnum opus – the almighty War Bastards – named, of course, after the unholy duo that was the dual-shock guitar line-up – James and Edward.

War Bastards only had two chords, but that's not to say that it had a chord structure. The Bastards of War would furiously thrum a single power-chord whilst the Cushions From Kent chewed over whichever rhythmical improvisations occurred to them. On an occasional signal from The Doctor – a cymbal roll and four strikes of the kick-drum – the music would suddenly halt for a primal scream of “War Bastards!” from all five of The Unconsoled.

Beyond this they had a cover of Napoleon XIV's They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Haa – a song chosen because it features nothing at all in the way of music or singing. The drumbeat was easy-enough for them to replicate; and being spoken rather than sung, the vocals were ideal for The Unconsoled. The real challenge was in finding enough for five musicians to do in a cover of a song which features nothing in the way of an arrangement.

So their repertoire never really stretched beyond two songs. But given that one of these songs could, if The Unconsoled so desired, be played for three hours or more, this was never seen as much of a problem. Besides, The Unconsoled never got around to playing a gig anyway. Nor did they ever make any recordings. In fact, the only physical contribution they ever made to anything was in signing a birthday card as “The Unconsoled”. It was cheaper than buying five different cards.

No, for the duration of their short existence, The Unconsoled were defined less by their revolutionary contribution to music and more by their bitter rivalry with ex-guitarist Demigod David. Mistakes were made and harsh-words were exchanged – the rivalry culminating in the penning of a vicious diatribe entitled Vote Unconsoled! It consisted of a litany of slanderous accusations designed to demonise and defame the Demigod. It boasted such marvellous vignettes as “The Demigod quite enjoys setting his hands on fire. Are these the hands you want feeding your children?” It ended with a terrifying screech of “vote Unconsoled!”

It would have made for a malevolent musical maelstrom to match even the merciless tempestuous fury of War Bastards. But sadly, The Unconsoled would never get round to creating an arrangement worthy of the fiery libel they had penned. They were doomed from the start.

Most bands, upon splitting, cite such reasons as “creative differences” for their schism. The Unconsoled, though, must be the only band to have ever existed who could lay claim to being torn apart by shit. Almost literally: The Unconsoled were torn apart by shit.

One night, The Doctor delivered an almighty floater in Jake's toilet – the kind which just wouldn't flush-away. You know the kind. It was, regrettably, discovered by Jake's mum. It being her night-off, she didn't exactly relish the idea of having to bleach the toilet. Especially when she'd already got all-dressed up. She was furious to the extent that she banned The Unconsoled from ever practising in her attic ever again. And, having lost their rehearsal space, The Unconsoled simply couldn't continue. Their exiled walk on the mean jaundiced streets of Hillside was a dark moment for all. The Demigod had won.

Nobody but The Unconsoled ever heard The Unconsoled play – and they didn't so much “play” as “interrogate”. This is a sad tale of what could have been. They sowed the seeds of metal poetry six years or so before Loutallica. Perhaps when Lou Reed, in 1972, promised to “reap just what you sow”, he was referring to the dark chaos of The Unconsoled.

I'm not accusing him of plagiarism. I'm just saying that when I heard Lulu, I heard The Unconsoled. Specifically, what is Pumping Blood if not a more disciplined version of War Bastards?

The Unconsoled live on in the cold, dead, unfeeling eyes of that dismembered abused mannequin torso which adorns the front of Lulu.

And the dark, clever twist in this tale?

That pretentious and inept vocalist? It was I all along! Aha!

The Unconsoled are dead. Long live The Unconsoled.

If I'm found slumped over my laptop – a trickle of blood oozing from the corner of my mouth – you know to blame The Demigod.

Vote Unconsoled!

Why You Should Boycott Tesco

2011-10-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

I created this blog in order to write long and tedious articles about various aspects of film, music and television. My intentions were to create a sort of vein of positivity in the midst of a field in which people seem to score brownie points for cynicism. To that end I've tried my hardest to only write about things I enjoy.

However, evil does exist, and sometimes it just won't do to live and let live. You must allow for me to be serious for a few moments. And though I've written about evil before, when doing so I was still ostensibly writing about music. This time, though, I'm going to have to veer wildly off-topic, as it cannot go unsaid: Tesco are evil.

Or, if they're not evil, then they are, without a doubt, cold and unfeeling hypocrites to be boycotted immediately.

I used to write for Yelp. My position involved writing reviews of businesses and places of interest in the Liverpool and Manchester areas. I readily admit to dishing out scathing one-star reviews of every branch of Tesco I ever encountered. This wasn't pettiness on my part. The whole idea of Yelp is to inform you of what's unique and worth seeing in a city. Tesco, though, will always represent bland corporate homogeneity and, a lot of the time, they seem to exist at the expense of local and independent ventures. They got one-star on principal. They stood against everything Yelp existed to champion.

But then you learn of such initiatives as their Charity of the Year and you start to feel a little guilty. Each year, Tesco raises money and awareness for a specific charity through various fundraising ventures. To be reminded of this having criticised them so heavily – well, it's quite hard not to feel like some kind of dying-internally snivelling armchair critic.

But this year, Tesco's Charity of the Year is The Alzheimer's Society. They're aiming to raise £5 million “build a better future for people with dementia.” According to the website of their partnership, their aims are as follows:

1. For every day of our partnership, we want to help 300 people live better with dementia.

2. We aim to give 100,000 people easy-to-access support and information through the Dementia Community Roadshow.

3. We aim to help 10,000 isolated families get specialist care and advice through our new Dementia Support services.

4. We will also fund two vital dementia research scientists who will conduct groundbreaking research.

Fair enough.

It's just that -

My nan has Alzheimers, but she doesn't shop at Tesco any more.

Want to know why?

Because they banned her.

Why did they ban her?

Essentially, for displaying symptoms of Alzheimers.

If you have ever known anybody with this condition, then you'll know that they're frequently confused and often find themselves with no idea of where they are or what they're doing. So they go through the motions and routine and clutch onto that which is familiar.

So you're walking through a supermarket and you're carrying a bag. Because your brain itself is deteriorating, the action of placing things in your bag is literally absent-minded.

This happened in Sainsbury's. She was caught leaving the store with various unpaid-for items in her bag. When confronted, her confused reaction was such that – coupled with the fact that the staff knew her – it was enough to satisfy anybody that she was not shoplifting. She was just very, very confused on account of her condition.

But Sainsbury's have a business to run. Of course, they can't have people walking round taking stock from their shelves. Dementia or no dementia – if they leave the store without paying, then the store loses money. It's completely understandable that Sainsbury's should take exception to this. But Sainsbury's also happen to be human. They did the right thing: they contacted her family, told us what happened and asked firmly but fairly that should she ever come to their store again, that she does so under our supervision.

See that, Tesco? That's how you should have reacted.

For – yes – the same thing happened in Liverpool's Old Swan branch of Tesco. A small, confused elderly lady – a loyal customer for long enough to have accrued no small amount of points on her Loyalty Card – is caught literally absent-mindedly places several items in her bag.

I cannot stress enough that she simply had no idea what she was doing and would be absolutely mortified were she to suddenly realise what she were doing. Unconscious shoplifing is widely understood to be an unfortunate side-effect of Alzheimers.

But unlike Sainsbury's, when Tesco see this sad and sorry scene, they don't see a sufferer of the very condition they're this year apparently trying to help. No. Instead they apparently saw a cold, hardened criminal and treated her as such. She's marched to the back office where she is reprimanded.

We don't know exactly what happened because she was alone – and that's very important. She was alone. To be in the supermarket alone – even though it was a place familiar to her through years of visit – must have been confusing and mildly terrifying for her. But to be marched by force to the back office? Even if it was for kind words and a cup of tea, the confusion alone must have been horrifying for her.

But there were no kind words and there was no cup of tea. Instead, they wiped-clean her hard-accrued loyalty points, banned her from the store and – apparently setting out to prove that they really are as bad as everyone secretly suspect – forced her to leave through the back exit. She therefore had humiliation to add to her terror and confusion.

She was so ashamed that she didn't tell us. We only found out when we found a letter from the store in her bag, and she was very reluctant to elaborate. But eventually she did. And the experience was so traumatic that she now very rarely seems to leave the house.

It's been pointed out to me that the manager and security of that particular Tesco may only have been acting in line with their store policy. This would be an acceptable explanation were it not for three things:

1.We have the precedent of Sainsbury's to show us that even big businesses do not necessarily have to act so heartlessly.

2.Their Charity of this Year is The Alzheimer's Society. Would a little bit of sensitivity therefore be too much to ask?

3.Even if they were so determined to make no exceptions for shoplifters – be they intentional or not – was it really so necessary to take away her loyalty points and force her to leave - most probably sobbing and trembling - through the back exit?

We contacted Tesco to give them a chance to explain themselves. Perhaps these were merely the actions of a loose-cannon manager who plays by his own rules? Surely those who were that very year working to raise funds and awareness for sufferers of dementia would be horrified to learn that a sufferer had been so badly and unfairly mistreated by their own hands?

But they were remorseless. I've not yet seen the letter they sent, but I've been told of its contents. They essentially insisted that, having investigated the matter, they have no problems at all with the manner in which the Old Swan branch acted.

Which suggests that they really do have such stringent policies that they can make no exception for anyone. However,I am told that nowhere in the letter was a simple two syllable word used which would have, at the very least, suggested regret on their part. Not even, I'm reliably informed, a token “we apologise for any misunderstanding”.

What were we expecting? For them to lift the ban? For them to fire or reprimand the jobsworth manager of the Old Swan branch? For them to reinstate her loyalty points, or perhaps send some vouchers as a token of goodwill?

I really think we would have settled for an apology, even if it was followed by a firm “we have a zero-tolerance policy” caveat. I actually naively thought that an apology would be a given. This might be Tesco, but the bad PR that would stem from their behaving so insensitively towards one so vulnerable – a representative, indeed, of their charity of the year – would at the very least be worth an apology. But that was never going to happen. This is Tesco, after all.

So why, then, would an explicit champion of The Alzheimer's Charity be so remorseless in the face of hypocrisy on their part?

You'd think that they'd only started the whole Charity of the Year thing as an empty token gesture or something, wouldn't you? A sort of “look how benevolent we are” which is supposed to make up for every other unethical practice on their part.

To pledge to raise £5 million for any charity is undeniably admirable. But when Tesco itself embodies the very problem they're trying to fix (misunderstanding and mistreatment of dementia sufferers), you really do have to question their motives.

Imagine if they'd secretly funded arms-manufacturers whilst The British Red Cross were their chosen charity. I'm now convinced that the whole Charity of the Year conceit is designed to be one giant arrow pointing the other way.

That alone would be enough for me to vow to boycott. But no.

This time it's personal.

The Great 2011 Film Challenge Part 3

2011-10-12T03:21:00.000-07:00

I challenged myself to watch 100 films I've never seen before in 2011. By September 4th, I had achieved this. Hmn.

So now the challenge is to breach 150.

That's doable. Harder, though, will be to write about all those that I've seen by the end of the year.

I shall do it in instalments, sir. Not only does that make it easier to read and write, but it also means that I get more content which should serve to raise my rankings in Google! Everybody wins!

So, here's part one, and part two was incorporated into my post about my afternoon at the BFI Mediateque.

Part three, then:

1. Valerie & Her Week Of Wonders
This one, coveted by those lovely hauntological types, almost defies categorisation. It's essentially a vampiric coming of age tale, but it's more Holy Mountain than Let The Right One In. Yes, it's so full of bleary dialogue, hazy imagery and striking symbolism that, even given its short runtime, watching it feels like sleepwalking. The word “dreamlike” was made for films like this.

2. Persepolis
Rendered in stark black and white so as to echo the graphic novel source material, this one's as humbling as it is inspirational. At one point our hero, having survived revolution in Iran, is driven nearly to the brink after having lost her European boyfriend. There's probably a lesson there – that if we ever feel as though things are bad in the west, well – you have no idea. And yet, it never feels preachy (even though it occasionally preaches) and, despite the weighty subject matter and poignant ending, it somehow manages to be a lot of fun, too.

3. Tropic Thunder
Idiot actors making a film about Vietnam get stuck in a real combat situation and, for a while, don't realise it. A pretty obvious idea, but nonetheless, this film is mental and very, very funny. The “grunt” dialogue is hysterical (“Our asses don't get fragged in this bullshit valley, first thing I'm doin' is payin' my two bucks so I can watch Brooklyn bust his cherry on a sweet little mama son's dinky-down poon-tang!”) and the films-within-films are fantastically realised. Only Tom Cruise's caustic and offensive producer threatens to ruin the fun, but apart from that this is a genuinely funny modern comedy that bears repeat viewings.

4. Step Brothers
At one point, Will Ferrell's character places his ballsack on his step-brother's beloved drumkit. But the testicles you see aren't real. Rather, they're synthetics which cost around $10,000 to make. That alone should give anybody an idea as to what sort of film this is: They take their gross-outs very seriously. That the synthetic balls cost so much entails that nobody can describe the scene as “throwaway”. They'll have you know that a lot of money went into it, thank you very much. Are we to therefore assume that just as much time and effort was dedicated to every other facet of this film? Well, if so, it certainly shows. As modern comedy goes, you can tell which films are doomed to be forever considered as trite and disposable (The Hangover and any recent spoof) and which are worthy to be considered as part of a new classic canon. I would without question place this in the latter category.

5. Romance & Cigarettes
One of these days I'm going to make a list of musicals for people who think they don't like musicals. This would be a strong contender for the top spot. Rather like Flight of the Conchords, the characters only break out into song when they no longer feel able to express themselves otherwise. In the tunes, then, are their secrets, their dreams, their desires. And it doesn't harm, of course, that the songs are such energising standards from the likes of Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, James Brown, Cyndi Lauper, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Presley. Add to this genuinely sympathetic characters, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken and a performance from Kate Winslet which can quite literally be described as “hot” and you have something which I found quite impossible not to enjoy.

6. Monster Squad
I wasn't sure whether to include this one. I had most certainly seen it before, but was so young when last I did that I didn't really – if you get what I mean. It had been so forgotten that when I watched it again, though the odd scene invoked a disquieting sense of deja vu, overall it felt like I was watching it with fresh eyes. So it counts, right? Right. Well, any child with even a passing interest in ghosts and ghoulies would be in their element with this one in which Dracula, Frankenstine, a mummy, a werewolf and The Creature basically team up in order to ruin everybody's day. Though ostensibly this is a horror film, it's almost certainly got a young audience in mind. That said, this particular incarnation of Dracula is one of the creepiest – and therefore best – that I've ever seen. The reason it works so well is that he's essentially your stereotypical image of Dracula – all fangs, capes and weirdly arched hair – but played not for camp laughs, but seriously. It works, trust me.

7. The Sea Shall Not Have Them
A World War II propaganda film in which a rescue mission is launched for a lifeboat full of spunky Brits which is floating dangerously close to the coast of occupied France. “But it's dangerous out there!” “Well we're going anyway, for the sea shall not have them!” Yeah, it's propaganda, but if propaganda is to exist, I've less a problem with this sort of stiff-upper-lip-spirit-of-the-blitz-chin-up fare than I have with something like, say, Birth of a Nation, in which the Klan are portrayed as heroes.

8. The Boys In Blue
The sole cinematic endeavour of Cannon and Ball – I've still no idea why I watched this one to the end. Never let it be said that I'm not prepared to suffer for my blog. Who are Cannon and Ball? Well, they're a comedy duo from another time. Some would describe this time as “more innocent”, others as “sadly regrettable”. To get a good idea of the sort of antics they get up to, just try and imagine The Chuckle Brothers if one of them was a sex offender. In this one they're policemen trying to tackle an art-smuggling racket. It ends with them disgraced and losing their job – despite having solved the crime and returned the art – and walking forlornly into the distance on a rainy airfield. I've no doubt that this ending was designed to open up the possibility of a sequel in which the had gained some other form of employment – window cleaners, or something – but seeing as their careers in film ended here, it ends up being quite hopelessly bleak.

9. Follow A Star
This is a Norman Wisdom film. It starts off quite brilliantly – with two sweaty men in vests tensely tackling a monstrous machine which turns out to be a trouser press – but after this things develop/descend into your more standard Wisdom fare. Personally, I've lots of time for the innocent antics of Pitkin, but overall this one's unusually cruel. The plot involves Norman shadowing and later eclipsing the fame of a concert hall singer. Of course it's all played for laughs, but I couldn't help but feel for the poor singer – the look on his face as his world collapsed around him was heartbreaking. If you consider that music hall really was all-but destroyed by the cinema, then this film comes across as quite vindictive – history as written by the winners.

10. Definitely, Maybe
A romantic comedy in which Ryan Reynolds – despite listening to R.E.M, Yo La Tengo and The Flaming Lips, at one point claims total ignorance of Nirvana. How the hell do they expect us to take this stuff seriously if apparently so little thought went into its writing?

That's all for now. Another ten soon. Sure.

...And I Feel Awful - A Tribute To R.E.M

2011-09-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not lacking in perspective. I appreciate that there are much worse things going on in the world right now. But do you know why I listen to music? For the same reason as I read books or watch films and plays and television. I'm of the C.S. Lewis persuasion: It makes me feel less alone.

Yes, like everyone for whom music plays a greater role than merely being part of a lifestyle, music for me is often a coping mechanism. When times are hard (and times are often hard), music makes me feel as though life's worth living.

And, as is the case for all obsessives who harbour a desperate love for music, inevitably there will be groups and artists upon whom I feel I can depend. They'll always be there for me, and they'll always make me feel better.

In short, in losing R.E.M, it's no exaggeration to say that I've now one less reason to be happy; one less reason to get out of bed in the morning.

But how can they be dead when we still have the music? Yeah yeah. Their discography has the potential to keep me occupied to the grave. But there's a real sense of knowing here, and that knowing is crushing. It's the knowing that never again will there be the anticipation and thrill of the new. The knowing that never again will there ever be any opportunity to see them live – to actually share physical space with them – to see them play those treasured songs right there, no more than a hundred metres before me.

The worst thing, though, is that we're now living in the time where cynicism and cowardly anonymity reigns. So far, absolutely every bit of coverage that this devastating news has received has done nothing to satisfy my grief.

And yes, it is grief. How can the sudden loss of something which means so much to you – something on which you thought you would always be able to rely – ever inspire anything other than grief?

But no. Even those that purport to care have been almost gleefully damning. It seems that, some years ago, notes were circulated amongst those who I hate so, so much to the tune that R.E.M just aren't worth caring about. They no longer contribute anything of relevance and anybody who professes a love is just deluded. Obviously. So, clearly it's about time that they split. We're better off without them.

Like hell we are, and like hell did that master baiter mean no malice.

How anybody can speak of a stretch of albums as R.E.M's post 1995 work in anything but glowing terms is beyond me. Just from the very top of my head, on those albums can be found The WakeUp Bomb; Leave; Be Mine; So Fast So Numb; Electrolite; Hope; Walk Unafraid; Airport Man; At My Most Beautiful; All The Way To Reno; Imitation of Life; I'll Take The Rain; Leaving New York; The Final Straw; Electron Blue; Man-Sized Wreath; Supernatural Superserious; Mr. Richards; I'm Gonna DJ; Discoverer; Mine Smell Like Honey -

I could go on. But my point is that there is a body of work which will (I use the modal verb with no hesitancy here) – WILL stand the test of time. As far as I'm concerned, Luke Lewis hasn't heard any of those post-95 albums and is, instead, subscribing to the easiest and laziest course of action – that is, agreeing with the consensus.

Worse, though was Everett True of The Collapse Board. Everett didn't care. You'd think, though, that if he truly didn't care that the worst thing he could do would be nothing. What could be worse, indeed, than saying nothing at all in the face of the disbanding of one of the most beloved and influential groups to ever have existed? The silence would have been deafening in its damnation.

But no. Everett wanted us to know just how much he didn't care. We were to hoist him aloft in praise of his right-on apathy. We were to worship his irreverence. And, in the process, old Everett came across as every bit as narrow-minded and obnoxious as one of those tadpoles who rushes to the comment section of an online obituary only to type “who?” The world must be aware of the extent to which you don't care.

Drowned In Sound almost got it right. It's a shame that their tribute revolved around the same tired old conceit that they've done nothing of value since 1995. But nothing could compare to the pathetic sneering cynicism which hung around the message boards like a bad smell. There I was called a “massive gaylord” for daring to care about something. Yes, I can see the funny side. But forgive me for not wanting to spend a second longer in a world which pours scorn upon those who care.

I couldn't bring myself to read "The Quietus Verdict". I'm sure it was very droll and knowing and superior, though.

No, this is a tribute from somebody who sees no need to put a spin or a position on his assessment. My love of R.E.M knows no bounds. It has no caveat. When I say that I love R.E.M, I am not referring to a specific era with a few exceptions. No. Without a single exception, I love everything they ever released.

Yes. I really like Around The Sun.

I'd wax lyrical about their incredible early-run of albums had they not been praised to high-heaven already. Similarly, I'd give their vastly underrated later albums some much needed love were it not to imply that I somehow favour their later years.

Instead, then, I want to talk about how much I love Collapse Into Now.

See, up until yesterday I saw this album as merely a further entry into an already impeccable body of work. Now, though, all have been forced to view it in a completely different light. Now it's to be forever viewed as their swan song.

That's why this really hurts, you know. I never thought there'd be a time without R.E.M. I thought they'd always be there. Now, though, I'm clutching onto Collapse Into Now like the last gift left by a loved-one.

Imagine if a loved-one were to die moments after handing you a box of matches. You'd treasure this box of matches for the rest of your life. It would languish in a locked box safe and untouched. You might take it out from time to time and smile benignly at the memories it evokes, but it wouldn't necessarily be part of your life.

Imagine, though, if the parting gift from the loved one is an intricate painting which, when hung on your wall, serves to really bring the room together. Generally, you're simply glad that it's there. But to just glance at it is to remind you of the person who is now, sadly, no longer with you. A glance is all that's needed to make you feel better.

But if you're to get up close and study the intricacies of this painting, something occurs to you: This is a very good painting. You could stare at it for hours. You could live in this painting.

Then, six months later, you realise something: You'd love this painting removed from context. You wouldn't hesitate to hang it on your wall even if it didn't have the emotional attachment to a departed friend.

That's exactly how I've come to feel about Collapse Into Now over the past day or so. I've liked the album ever since I first heard it. Now, though, it's become that parting gift. But, like the proverbial painting, I know for a fact that I'd treasure it as part of my life even if it wasn't so representative of something terrible. Hell, I'd treasure it even if it was the debut album of someone yet to change the world.

Essentially, what may have been an also-ran in my list of albums which have shaped my year is now a very strong contender for the number one spot.

Back in spring when I allowed for those wonderful, wonderful songs to soundtrack my walks to and from work, I had no idea just how much those tunes would come to mean to me. They're all testaments to the incredible power that loud, crunching guitar chords can have upon shaping my mood. They're all loaded with such melodies that have the same impact upon me as does the sun slowly emerging from behind a grey, heavy cloud. They are nothing short of the sound of happiness.

And, being R.E.M songs, they're also heavy with some of the most fantastic wordplay this side of anywhere. It will always be a rewarding task to explore these lyrical landscapes, but for now they all serve to put a hand on my shoulder and, with a smile, whisper four words:

“Goodbye. It's been fun.”

How fitting do those triumphant closing moments sound now.

I still don't like the cover, though.

I Really Wish E4 Hadn't Cancelled Friends

2011-09-09T02:34:00.000-07:00

I thought it would never happen. E4 have stopped showing Friends.

Big deal? Absolutely. It's such a big deal that I was moved to revisit a piece I wrote in about 2006 in which I argued that reliable TV programming provides an excellent means of building a routine. And routines for some form an invaluable part of their sanity.

I called it "Television CAN Save The World! (or at least your sanity)", and I'm struck by how prescient and darkly prophetic it seems. I am now unemployed and deeply, deeply unhappy. I could really do with something like a daily fix of Friends. It would give me something to hold onto.

So, without further ado, here's some vintage me from 2006. Marvel at my use of ellipsis (which I would never use now), my reference to Mew and my invocation of knowledge gained during my "Introduction to Moral Philosophy" course:

-------------------------------

Every day at 17.00 (and again at 20.00) E4 broadcasts a double bill of Friends. You could quite literally set your watch to it: “And at the end of the Appletizer Diamond Promotion advert the time will be 17.00 exact. (Beep, beep, beep)”. In many ways this marathon of mild, inoffensive comedy from across the pond is the highlight of my day. It’s pure escapism. When Friends is on, life doesn’t bother me at all. It’s not like I can relate to the lives of these rich, young, ridiculously attractive and appallingly shallow New Yorkers; far from it. But for an hour a day I can escape into a world where everything’s ok. Where conflicts are resolved in the space of a half hour cup of coffee, where people pause having spoken to allow for an invisible studio audience to laugh themselves into oblivion.

I’m not for one second claiming that Friends is an example of quality television. It frequently induces cringing. I find myself muting the TV when it’s likely that the audience will scream. A very reliable “heads-up” is when anyone kisses. Out-loud laughter’s infrequent, and many jokes miss the mark completely. And yet…I’m completely addicted. I find myself having withdrawal symptoms if I go without my daily fix.

And I’m sure that it’s exactly the same for many people. In a very post-modern move E4 have started to cringe at their own routine predictability: “Coming up next: More Friends (sigh)”. But they know for a fact that there’d be a right ruckus if they ever dared to change their scheduling. It’s the same with the daily 18.00 showing of The Simpsons, or the soaps that are on at exactly the same time every single night and subsequently repeated in a 2.5 hour endurance tests at the weekend. People have come to rely upon this schedule. It really is nice to know that at a set point every day you’ll have something decent to watch. It gives you something to look forward to. Case in point: Look how many people suddenly feel strangely empty when a series of Big Brother ends. That’s why we’re plagued with so many spin-off shows.

Any freshers who suddenly find themselves hundreds of miles away from home in a strange city surrounded by “frengers” (not quite friends, not quite strangers) can find solace in this sort of television. Once one has a routine it’s far easier for one to settle in. And before you know it, you’re enjoying yourself. I’m a second year now, and it’s fair to say that I’ve only just settled in. It took twelve months. However, I’m confident that had I access to a television set in my first year the process of settling in would only have taken…a week or two. No matter how adamantly we may try to deny it, as humans we are creatures of routine. Imagine a life without routine. You’d go insane very quickly. Aristotle knew it. He said that the virtuous life is filled with “worthwhile activity”. That might as well be a byword for “routine”. Look how bored and depressed the unemployed get. We NEED routine.

I’m all for daring and experimental television. But people should stop complaining about endless repeats. Some of us need those. Like the ozone layer and love, you’d only miss them when they’re gone.

-------------------------------

And oh, lord knows how I miss them.

An Afternoon At The BFI Mediateque

2011-08-31T05:35:00.000-07:00

With three and a half hours to kill between job interviews, I spent a very enjoyable afternoon delving into the BFI Mediateque at the Derby Quad.

If you ply them with a proof of address, they'll give you a special card which will allow for you to watch as many films as you want for as long as you want. Suddenly, the yawning stretch of time between my appointments didn't seem so tedious. Within moments, I had a world of wonder at my fingertips – and in three hours I barely scratched the surface.

It should be noted, incidentally, that nine of the ten films I watched contribute towards my 2011 Film Challenge target.

I started with a couple of music videos. First came a TV promo by Screaming Lord Sutch for Jack The Ripper. As staunch, static and gaudy as any studio-bound performance of the early-60s, a succession of vaguely-Victorian ladies were mercilessly slaughtered in as camp and tasteless a manner as was possible in the stoic and tasteful wasteland that was television back then.

Next came an attempt to simulate the effects of psychedelic drugs without the use of psychedelic drugs. Called Beyond Image, it was essentially a colourful kaleidoscopic oil-lantern display set to the droning bleeps and repetitive bass jams of The Soft Machine. Watching it on headphones and staring fixedly at the screen, I really did feel something approaching transcendence as my thought patterns achieved synchronism with the mercurial colours.

After this I dipped into their animation archives, in which I could honestly have wallowed for hours. I begun with a cheerful piece called A Short Vision. Comprised mainly of still images with such animation as resembled the movements of puppets cut from paper, it told a story of nuclear apocalypse. Apparently shown on a prime-time slot in America, the footage of a man's eyeballs popping and melting down his face were seemingly enough to inspire the formation of the CND.

Run Wrake's Rabbit I had seen before, but I jumped upon the chance to see it again. Set in a storybook world part Ladybird, part Enid Blyton (everything has a label), it tells the story of two children who find an idol when they cut a rabbit in half with the intention of making a muff. The idol loves plum jam but hates wasps and flies. These pests he zaps with lightning bolts from his fingers and, once zapped, they become jewels and, of course, feathers and jars of ink. Though surreal in the purest sense of the word, this highly disturbing piece also harboured a very important message and a truly horrifying ending.

Then came something which I've wanted to see for ages: The Quay Brothers' Street of Crocodiles which, apart from anything else, served to reassure me that I'm not yet fully desensitised and that, when exposed to certain concepts and imagery, I'm still very much capable of finding myself unnerved. Many such images could be found here: the fading glow of a dying lightbulb-headed man; a museum of bizarre anthropomorphic machinery banging on the glass for mercy; a female-torso fondling its own breasts; living screws dancing to their own beat and, worst of all, a makeover from three utterly freaky eyeless dolls which began with the removal of the head. It wasn't so much the images themselves that freaked me out as the inescapable feeling of familiarity: I've had this exact nightmare before, I just know it.

Fancying something lighter, I opted for an experimental piece from 1955 entitled 13 Cantos From Hell. Subtitled as “thirteen dramatised scenes from Dante's Divine Comedy”, this was the work of sculptor Peter King, who tragically died in a motorcycle accident two years after the film's release. It's comprised exclusively of stark black on white images which owe a lot to elaborate and distorted tribal patterns and the elegant work of shadow puppetry. The images themselves were striking enough, but the real pleasure here was in the remarkable soundtrack. A succession of rhythmic tribal percussion, otherworldly wailing and strange electronic beeps; a lot of the time it reminded me of the creepier and more discordant moments from the Liars' discography. I'm almost certain that they must have watched this one at some point, scribbling furious notes as they did so.

Though by no means tiring of animation, I wanted something a little different next. I opted for a trio of films from the first decade of the twentieth century. The earliest, entitled Undressing Extraordinary (1901), reminded me of those Daffy Duck cartoons in which he's tormented by the sadistic pencil of the animator. A tired traveller attempted to undress for bed, but upon removing one item of clothing another would appear. Hilariously, the traveller began, seemingly without realising, to step into the character of these costumes: He became regal when dressed as a king, stately when dressed as a policeman etc. Eventually he succeeded in stripping but was foiled in going to bed by the sudden appearance of a skeleton. Then the skeleton disappeared. Then it began to snow. Though ostensibly a comedy, apparently contemporary audiences found the concept of the most basic and everyday of tasks being rendered impossible by supernatural forces uncomfortable and disquieting. Undressing Extraordinary, then, is recognised by some as a very early horror film.

I stuck with the horror theme for the remainder of the afternoon. Dreams of Toyland (1908) was probably intended to be charming, enthralling and comedic. However, I found the dreamscape of ultraviolent toys to be nothing short of diabolical. They begun by waving at the camera, but in no time at all they were indulging in such practices that might make even Itchy and Scratchy wince: A wild goose gnawed ravenously on the face of a doll. A lady was tossed, face first, into the deep fat fryer of a passing hot-dog cart. A London bus, driven by an insane monkey, appeared to take great delight in ploughing over all who stood in its way. That this was supposed to be a comedy should give food for thought for those who think that gratuitous violence is a relatively new phenomenon in cinema.

The Man & His Bottle (1908), though, I don't think was ever intended to be taken lightly. A man, either hungover or attempting to kick his alcoholism, found himself tormented by apparitions of devils, white rats and legions of floating bottles. One bottle sprouted arms and legs and began to follow him down the street. His nightmare ended in a beer cellar, where he was at first attacked by strange octopus-like creatures. Then a trio of clowns appeared with “DT” written on their costumes (delirium tremens?) Taking a limb each, they stretched him until he resembled a gaunt rag-doll before stuffing him into a giant bottle and leaving him to die a painfully and ironic death.

In each of these three silent films, equally – if not more so – fascinating than the storylines were the faces staring suspiciously from windows at the camera. It's a feature of a lot of early cinema and photography. The camera must have been a source of marvel and wariness for these people. Scholars could interpret their looks as the past confronting the future. Personally, I'm always reminded of the ghostly faces glimpsed in the back of hearses – late for their own funeral.

Jumping forward some seven decades, my curiosity was piqued by a piece entitled The Universe of Dermot Finn, which I've only just discovered to have been directed by the increasingly-fascinating Philip Ridley. As the brief synopsis insisted, the less you know about this film before watching it, the more you'll enjoy it. I couldn't agree more, and that no images of it seem to exist online may hint at the existence of a sort of clandestine effort to preserve its mystery and wonder for the uninitiated. Suffice to say that it's one of the most successful blends of comedy and horror I've ever seen and that it rivals even David Lynch's Eraserhead in conjuring such images and concepts that will stick with you for life. It's a very British spin on a certain nightmarish scenario, and I would not hesitate to describe it as utterly unmissable.

Saving the longest (if not the best) for last, my afternoon was brought to a close when I finally got a chance to watch the original 1968 Omnibus version of Whistle & I'll Come To You. For my full thoughts on this one, why not head over to Found 0bjects?

I cannot recommend the BFI Mediateque enough. There really is something for everyone. I think my tastes can be roundly surmised as being “acquired”, but even I found enough to keep me enthralled for an entire afternoon, and I just know I'll be making a return visit before long.

It's free to join and, having joined, free to use. It's worth an afternoon of anyone's time. In fact, it's so good, that even if you don't live near I'd advise you to make a pilgrimage. You won't regret it for a moment.

ATP Don't Look Back - The Flaming Lips, Dinosaur Jr, Deerhoof

2011-07-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

Photos once again pilfered from James Wilkes's Facebook

This was the very first time I ever wore the t-shirt of the band I was due to see that night. Ho yes: For one night only, I was that guy.

This was also the very first time I'd attended a gig in London that wasn't some kind of festival. In addition, it was my first ever ATP event. The moment we entered Alexandra Palace, I understood just why their events are so revered: It's the attention to detail. It was clear right from the start that this was a night put on by music lovers with the express intention of satisfying the needs of those for whom music is a way of life.

The covers of the three albums that were to be played that night hung above the entrance like tribal banners. Giant versions stood before tall sparkling curtains by which you could have your picture taken. You could get yourself a massage, browse archival reviews and shop at the pop-up Rough Trade outlet. There were circles of chairs with attached headphones through which you could listen to what appeared to be albums considered canonical by the ATP elite: Fun House, If You're Feeling Sinister, Ladies & Gentlemen We're Floating In Space – right from the outset efforts had been made to make an event out of the gig.

Giant balloons had been suspended from the ceiling of the grand hall that was the performance space. Some were within our reach, so no sooner had the crowd gathered than a game began in which attempts were made to knock the smaller balloons into the larger ones. The effect was that a gentle multicoloured bobbing swam before the stage throughout the night – all performances were therefore as technicolour and fun as that of the headliners - it felt like a birthday party or some other celebration of goodwill. I suppose that was the point all along.

First up were Deerhoof, who were to play Milk Man, their 2004 concept album about some kind of malevolent psychedelic pied-piper type, in its entirety. They didn't quite achieve this. I can't remember them playing New Sneakers, and they bookended their set with a song which appears midway through the album's running order. The opening version of Milking was weak, anaemic and nervous – an immense disappointment which didn't bode well for the rest of the set. Things improved very rapidly, though, with a stunning triple barrage of Milk Man, Giga Dance and Desaparecere. But they really hit their stride with a demented run-through Rainbow Silhouette of the Milky Rain. It was every bit as mind-expanding as its title would have you believe and it teetered on a thrilling knife-edge between mathematical precision and absolute insanity. The second time they played Milking they recruited Cliff, the Flaming Lips' drummer. This allowed for a dual guitar line-up, so they were finally able to capture the demented chaos that I had come to expect. All was well.

A weapons-grade stack of Marshal amps heralded the arrival of Dinosaur Jr. They were here to play 1988's Bug, which meant that for what must have been the first time in a couple of decades they opened their set with Freak Scene. J Mascis would have been very well served by an electric fan at head height – he would have looked immortal were his flowing silver locks to billow as he shredded through his searing force-ten solos. So densely layered is their sound on record that I was afraid that they'd sound comparatively hollow live. Not so – their sound was a constant deliciously brutal sludge over which the sweetest and most laconic of vocals fluttered completely at-odds with the violence they were underpinning. They exuded a particular force during Yeah We Know – the thunderous THUMP which cleared the air before each refrain was heart-stopping. Finally, despite promising to destroy his voice for us, Lou Barlow's vocals on Don't had more of an Ozzy Osbourne wail about them than the hardcore roars we might have expected. I think the song was much better served by this style, though. It sounded like something of a yawning abyss of pain – utterly cathartic.

Some ten minutes or so before The Flaming Lips were due to take to the stage, Wayne Coyne addressed us directly. Prior to this, he had hardly been aloof. He had assisted in setting-up his band's equipment and could clearly be seen enjoying the two previous bands from the side of the stage. He warned those in the front row about the intensity of their strobes and spoke about what it meant to him to sing The Soft Bulletin in its entirety. He said that to play it in sequence is to make a suite out of it which, he said, really served to bring to light some of the concepts and thoughts inherent in the songs. He admitted that he sometimes felt overpowered by this, and begged our forgiveness should he falter.

There are some bands who thrive on mystique. Few would dare reveal themselves so starkly with the house-lights up. Wayne Coyne, though, seems to know that his music is powerful enough to speak for itself. It could survive without its accompanying smoke and mirrors, and his rambling monologues and interactions merely add further humanity to what is already the most human of music. I know some who are annoyed by what they call his “sermons”, but for me it just turns him into a sort of psychedelic Springsteen – a favourite uncle who's been round the block, has all the answers and knows loads of magic tricks.

He came amongst us in his space bubble – even though I was stood just in front of the mixing desk, he came even closer to me than he did even at Glastonbury 2010 where I was stood right at the front. As usual, I found it impossible not to grin on the verge of ecstatic tears as the confetti cannons exploded upon the first note of Race For The Prize. Then came A Spoonful Weighs A Ton, which was performed to a backdrop of Teletubbies, a show which looks more like a disturbing Japanese “found-object” with every passing year. The last line of this song is “The sound they made was love”, after which we were encouraged to emit a primal orgasmic roar. I think we failed in this, with maestro Steve Drozd remarking that ours sounded like the sort of orgasm you have when you don't want anybody to know you've had an orgasm.

The good thing about watching bands play albums in sequence is that by-and-large you can be sure that certain of your favourites will be played. It was marvellous seeing Spiritualized perform Ladies & Gentlemen... as I knew they'd play I Think I'm In Love. Similarly, part of my almost unbearable joy on Friday night lie in knowing that The Flaming Lips would play The Spark That Bled. It didn't disappoint. In fact, it exceeded all expectations – the moment they launched into the orchestral breakdown – here replicated on guitars – I found the emotions that welled up inside almost too much to bear. I really did want to stand up and say “Yeah” - or something similar – just anything to release the spiralling hyper real intensity that they were kindling within. They finished their song with their famous “Laser Hands” routine – in which Wayne Coyne shot multicoloured rainbows at a glitter ball above – which served to turn the whole room into a transcendental kaleidoscope. To put it simply, it was “a moment”.

One of the many remarkable things about The Soft Bulletin is the fact that at least two versions exist and neither seems to be thought of as canonical. The American release has a different running order to that of Europe, which means that when they play the album here, we get a different setlist to the American shows. Across the Atlantic, The Spark That Bled is followed by The Spiderbite Song and Buggin'. I envy the Americans on Buggin', but through owning a European version of the album I've never really been familiar with The Spiderbite Song. And, besides, we got an airy, shimmering piano version of Slow Motion. Apparently only the second time they've ever played it, we were warned that here more than anywhere they were likely to falter. But they didn't – it was beautiful.

Then things went wonderfully Pink Floyd as the lights went low and the lasers were released for the pulsating combo of What Is That Light? and The Observer. Easily the most atmospheric section of the night, I was nonetheless impatient for what I knew was coming next – what must be one of the saddest songs ever written, Waitin' For A Superman was performed in a stripped-down fashion with just Steven on the piano. Wayne worked his way around some of the lyrics in quite a jazzy fashion, but the overall effect was as devastating as a song can possibly be when shorn of its chiming tubular bells.

Due to a combination of a passed-out girl needing rescuing and, I fear, Wayne's sermonising, the set felt somewhat truncated. We did get the entirety of the European release of The Soft Bulletin, and it was magnificent. To no avail I hoped for Buggin', but so magnificent was the grandeur of that which they did play – so human and intense the themes and feelings evoked – that it would be churlish to complain. The American's got a longer encore, but Do You Realize?? is such a beautiful, life-affirming song that, again, in the face of it I feel it's impossible to criticise. That song radiates such all-encompassing truth that I'd happily have it played at both my wedding and my funeral.

On the way out I was harangued by a journalist type who informed me that he hadn't enjoyed the gig and had therefore left early. This he proclaimed with a shrug before shoving a camera in my face and asking that I give my thoughts. For many reasons, by that point I was reeling, so in retrospect my diatribe was probably every bit as shaky, disjointed and rambling as one of Wayne Coyne's.

His happiness, optimism and apparently undying faith in humanity, then, is seemingly infectious. He's absolutely right when he insists that “rock and roll can save the world, if you're nice to people”.

Said journalist had commented upon how he simply felt that “something was missing”.

Well, if ever anything was missing from my life, I feel that I owe a large portion of my salvation to The Flaming Lips.

10 Things I Learned At Glastonbury 2011

2011-06-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

Photos are by James Wilkes and are stolen from his Facebook.

I recently swore a solemn oath to attend Glastonbury every year it takes place for either as long as I live, or, at the very least, as long as it's sensible for me to do so. They've got that place nailed. Once again, each of the five days sowed at least one memory which will be treasured for life. In fact, I had such a wonderful time that I've even begun to consider 2011's to be a new benchmark in life-affirmation. Ho yes: I might just have enjoyed myself more than I did in 2009.

I would hammer out a painstaking dissection of my entire weekend, but for a few reasons. First of all, nobody would read it. Second of all, so prone am I to hyperbole and hagiography that those who did read it might mistake my ramblings for Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Mostly, though, it was always going to be the case that I'd finally “get” U2, that Coldplay would spellbind and that Elbow would, once again, make me feel like I'm floating several feet above my body.

Instead, then, in a rare moment of brevity on my part, I'm going to share the ten things I learned at Glastonbury 2011:

1. I Really Like Rock Music

Yes, this was always the case, I know. I couldn't help but notice, though, how all but two or three of the acts I saw over the weekend comprised of either gently strumming ethereal wonders or furiously punishing squalling warriors of such vigour that they'd be just in describing their instruments as “axes”. And you know what? It was bloody flipping brilliant. Yes, there will always be tremendous room for excursions into electronic sound as conducted with furrowed brows and stroked beards, but this weekend I learned that my “bread and butter” is served with a hefty slice of pickups and plectrums. Which reminds me -

2. Josh Homme Is A Really Nice Man

Yes, so enamoured was I by the majesty of rock that I caved and decided to let my weekend go out with a bang. The laser-enhanced Queens Of The Stone Age were a force of nature. So intense, intricate and brutal were their jams that the plaid-wearer in me was never not going to be thrilled, but having heard so much bad about the walking sneer that is Josh Homme, I was stunned to find him to actually be a really, really nice man. He seemed genuinely pleased to be onstage and absolutely delighted to play for us. His jokes were lewd but often swung endearing close to “dad” territory (“I saw a couple of guys dressed as fuckin' bananas. I guess they split”). I fully believed his statement that they'd never forget that night, and they more than delivered on their promise to give us a show that we'd never forget.

3. Mr. E Knows Exactly What He's Doing

In Sunday's blistering heat, a spin through their painfully aching back catalogue might not have provided a convincing case for Eels to be the ideal band to play at sunset. But when they took to the stage with a pair of uniformed horn players in tow and proceeded to treat us to nuanced arrangements of the more upbeat offerings from their canon, suddenly the planets aligned. The usually claustrophobic, terrifying Flyswatter was given such a summery revamp that the uninitiated might have mistaken it for a song about fishing during a carnival, or something. The Man Called E also confirmed himself to be one of the strangest and funniest men in rock. Such screams as “You have a nice smile!” came between songs, and his band introductions were utterly hysterical.

4. I Know What Bliss Looks And Tastes Like

It looks like a panoramic view of a sunkissed valley teaming with people dedicated to having the best time it is possible to have whilst inhabiting human skin set to the gently lilting sounds of Sea of Bees. It tastes like chargrilled Jamaican jerk chicken served with fried rice and kidney beans washed down with a cold beer. Bliss is also best spent in the company of people who you'd proudly profess to “bloody love”. Which it was. All weekend.

5. If You Want To Have Fun, It's Impossible Not To

Never mind the biblical downpours which greeted our arrival on Wednesday morning which ensured that we had to hastily erect our tents in freezing torrents and sit shivering in them for hours afterwards whilst we waited for the sky to clear, our clothes to dry and our fatigue to lift. By mid-afternoon we were sprawled on the grass drinking festival-strength pear-cider. We had arrived. And never mind that it took me some 11.5 hours to get home. What matters is that I was there. Glastonbury has tremendous potential to make you smile even when it seems that absolutely everything is conspiring against you. Case in point – our Welsh companion had some £150 stolen from his tent. He simply thus concluded that he therefore had to have an extra £150 worth of fun. Would that he and I and everyone could take the same approach to the rest of our lives.

6. Festivals Can Be Very, Very Cheap

I'm quite poor at the moment, but at no point did I feel destitute over the weekend. At no point did I feel as though my insolvency was having a negative impact upon my potential to enjoy myself. In fact, I managed to survive on around £100 for the entire five day weekend. The trick is to take lots of apples, bananas and cereal bars, to drink milk in the morning and to only eat when you feel hungry (as opposed to “whenever you pass a food vendor with a nice smile”, as has been my M.O in previous years). Also, the almost-intolerable hangover I suffered on Thursday morning served to scupper my alcohol intake for the rest of the weekend, which was a further ease on my spending. This also lead to the realisation that:

7. I Don't Have To Be Drunk Or Drinking To Enjoy Myself

See above. Though this one comes as an almighty relief, I'd quite like a glass of whatever Guy Garvey's having, thanks.

8. TV On The Radio Are To Be Respected And Feared
Paul Simon was a horrible disappointment. Stood in an immobile crowd in the baking heat (they weren't even rudely talking amongst themselves! They just were), we strained to hear him mumble his way through apparently endless meandering blues jams as opposed to dipping into one of the strongest repertoires in music. Also, so hasty were we to reach him that I fell face-first into the mud. Disappointed and alienated, we instead decided to watch TV On The Radio – a band I'd previously not really listened to and therefore had no real intention of watching. Well, their set was one of those incredible “revelation” things for which us music fans always yearn. The opening swathes of Young Liars provided every ounce of salvation I had expected from Mr. Simon. Before long, everything was OK again, and by the end of their uplifting, hyperkinetic and utterly vital set, they were covering Ray Parker Jnr.'s Ghostbusters. I left with a “new” band to “check out”. There are few greater feelings.

9. The King Of Limbs Was Written To Be Played Live

Due to severe problems with the crowd, Radiohead's surprise Friday set was far from a weekend highlight for me. I must stress, though, that my disappointment has absolutely nothing to do with the band. They offered tight, mercurial, majestic elegance which served to remind me as to why I still insist that they're my favourite band. It was an immense honour to find myself prithee to the live debuts of such songs which were, apparently, so difficult to replicate live that they had to recruit an auxiliary drummer. His name's Clive, and Thom was right, we love him already. When I wasn't struggling to see and hear them amongst a desperately impatient crowd, I was able to marvel at how incredible has been their evolution from grunge also-rans through Britpop saviours and world-conquering, genre-defying and defining luminaries to the taut and groovy peerless jazz-blues elder-statesmen that they've become today. The material from The King of Limbs which so dominated the set sounds awesome live – and any “reporter” who insists that the crowd was disappointed by the lack of “hits” is obviously spouting piffle in the interests of pursuing tired and tedious iconoclastic copy – from where I was standing, they were loving it.

10. The Realisation That There Will Be No Glastonbury Next Year Is Rather Like Realising That There'll Be No Christmas

Wes Anderson's Rushmore teaches us that the secret to happiness may lie in finding something that we enjoy doing and to keep on doing it. Well, for me that seems to be going to Glastonbury. It's utopia, nirvana, Brigadoon and Christmas all rolled into one. And it's not taking place next year.

Which makes me wonder: Just what the hell are we all going to do with ourselves next summer? Just like Halloween wouldn't act as a substitute for Christmas, I doubt that simply opting for a different festival would be enough to sate me.

It might well be the case that we'll just have to unite and try our utmost to create our own positivity.

And there you go – a beautiful lesson for life – make your own wonder. We can change the world and happiness is possible – just so long as we're nice to each other.

Until 2013, then.

London Feis 2011 - Satuday June 18

2011-06-20T07:49:00.000-07:00

Image from NME.com

I think that getting up at 5:30 to catch a 6:10 train in order to make my 7:00 coach is the second biggest effort I've ever made for the sake of live music. The coach was run by a company called “The Big Green Coach Company”. It was actually a milky white colour, but credit where it's due, it was quite big. It was full of families and people younger than me. I was the only one travelling alone, a fact our friendly driver brought to everyone's attention before we set off. Whether he was encouraging the other travellers to talk to me, I don't know. But they didn't. Heaven knows I tried talking to them. We stopped at Watford Gap and I bought a coffee. Recognising someone else from the coach in the queue, with a smile I raised my cup and said in a semi-suggestive voice: “One more cup of coffee before I go, hey?” The look I received was blank.
    When we got to Finsbury Park, I experienced the closest I'll ever come to VIP treatment. I paid but £5.40 for my ticket thanks to the beautiful people at Supajam, who were selling spare guestlist passes. Trudging across the mud I waved to the bearded fellow who was shouting “Supajam” again and again. He directed me towards a special gate where I was allowed entry without hassle, completely bypassing the long queue of those who'd paid £70 or so for the pleasure of being there. I felt as important as it's possible to feel whilst wearing a rust-coloured jumper.
    Walking around the site, I couldn't wipe the grin from my face – festival season has begun! And it felt incredible. Adding to my feeling of well-being was the knowledge that I was, at that moment, sharing a vicinity of sorts with Bob Dylan. That's the sort of fact which bears thinking about: It feels amazing.
    There were three stages on-site. Besides the main, there was an almighty tent reserved for the more trad-types on the line-up. Then there was the “Third Stage”, really just a raised platform under a tarpaulin. Their compère was reciting a verse from an epic concerning lemmings between each band. I listened to the prologue before watching Brian Kennedy do his thing in the tent. That man had credentials, and he was more than happy to tell us about the time he played with Van Morrison, the song he wrote with Eddi Reader (who, up until that very moment, I had assumed to be the singer from Pearl Jam). He was pleasant enough, but soon the drums from the main-stage began to drown-out his lilting. It was a band called The Coronas, who sounded about good enough to have supported Razorlight circa 2002. A few songs were sung in Gaelic, which was something, but not a lot. Still, it was my first instance of live and loud outdoor guitar music of the year, and it induced a hankering for cider to which I was more than happy to succumb.
    Presently Dan arrived, and scrutinising the line-up we worked out an itinerary of who to see. In doing so, we realised that we really were going to have a lovely day, and didn't we just?
    The first band we saw together were The Undertones, who proclaimed their intentions to play their first album in its entirety. This they did, but not in sequence – Teenage Kicks came towards the end – but not even John Peel's favourite song which, as he used to say, is indeed perfect in every way – could raise the stature of what was essentially a throwaway set of forgettable punk rock songs which, sounding too similar to one another, simply bled together into one big, tedious drone.
    Now, as sentences go, this one will do wonders for shattering every ounce of cool I might ever have harboured: Luckily, The Waterboys came on next. Their Glastonbury Song raised the hairs on the back of my neck as I was reminded of where I'd be in less than a week. We also got their other two biggest songs in The Whole Of The Moon and Fisherman's Blues – powerful stuff – and a song from their upcoming Yeats album sounded excellent. Unfortunately, their set was marred by a breaking of what's sort of a golden rule of mine – never cover a band who're going to play on the same stage, on the same day. Their version of You're A Big Girl Now wasn't necessarily bad, but it ate about eight minutes of an hour long set which could've been filled with something else from their mighty canon.
    After this we ventured into the trad-tent to have a gander at the Sharon Shannon Big Band. She was magical, the place was heaving and the atmosphere was incredible – a surging, whooping mass of goodwill and abandon. We should've spent more time in there, actually. It'd've been drier, at least.
    But then we wouldn't've seen The Gaslight Anthem and The Cranberries! The former's albums had never really impressed me before – I thought they sounded like an even more polished version of The Killers – but live they were something of a glowing force of positivity – finally all of the Springsteen comparisons began to make sense – their hopeful chords and plaintive vocals were like gentle arms around the waist under a sky which broke repeatedly. And The Cranberries! Queuing for a pie, I regrettably all but missed the pounding opening trills of Zombie, but it did mean that I could savour the taste of soft, fluffy and warm mash as they rhymed “finger” with “linger”. That was a moment to which I'd happily return right now – for to return to that moment would mean that I'd be able to live through all that followed once more.
    What followed? A spell at the third-stage to watch The Treetop Flyers. Their sprightly shouty folk-rock had drawn quite a sizeable crowd, and their noise was such an empowering force that it could've billowed hairs and spilt pints – theirs is the sort of music that grabs you by the beard and with a sly wink puts a fiver in your front pocket. We exchanged a bemused look as they introduced their last song with some fifteen minutes of their set time remaining. Turns out, though, that they were just saving room for a multi-part folk opera which seemed to be a haunted house. I was every bit as enthralled as I was the first time I saw Mumford and Sons. But, seeing as these guys seemed to have more than one metaphor at their disposal, I might not even find myself disappointed when I expose them to deeper scrutiny!
    After “bumping into” some old friends, I excused myself to go and see O Emperor. Meekly I admitted that they sound a bit like Starsailor. Yep, I sighed. That's the sort of music which gets me excited these days.
    Except, they don't. Their sound has a lot more in common with the likes of Midlake and Mercury Rev – cosmic, mercurial, spellbinding. Not even the girl who asked me for a cigarette and a light after seemingly every single song could shake me from the awestruck trance they inspired. I surrendered, and life has been that little bit better ever since I set a place at the table for O Emperor – a band wholly worthy of the vocative in their name. May they conquer the world, and may all who oppose them find themselves knee-deep in the blood of their children.
    So, suitably limbered, I was, as they say in some parts, “Ready For Bob”. I was asked, earlier in the day, if I expected him to be shit. Truthfully, I was fearing the worst. It's a good means of ensuring that you're never disappointed, is fearing the worst. Within moments of him taking to the stage, though, I wondered as to what exactly those scribblers of bad reviews in which I had immersed myself the night before had crammed up their collective arses. Then it struck me: they all came from such resources for which I have no respect at all. Principally, The Telegraph and The Quietus – two resources which I hold in about equal esteem. Not to blow my own trumpet, but I think it says something about my intense loathing for The Quietus when The Telegraph release shit like this and dare to call it a "feature".
    Anyway, Bob Dylan. Despite my reservations, very little of my enjoyment of his set stemmed from the reverence of being in the presence of a hero. Rather, it all came from the music – it had to, really. There were no screens flanking this stage.
    All the tyrannical rearrangement of his songs of which I'd been warned simply resulted in tighter grooves and bigger drums – the result being that you could dance to most everything he played, and most everyone did. Dance, that is. It was one of the most energised, alive and amplified crowds of which I've ever been a part. To such wondrous boogies as Thunder On The Mountain, Summer Days and an incandescent Highway 61, ho did we ever “get down”. A particular highlight was a tremendous slow-burning rendition of Cold Irons Bound. Closing the main set, Ballad Of A Thin Man radiated evil. Rather than plugging their fingers in their ears and insisting that “he's still got it” (as The Quietus would like to believe we do), I firmly believe that there must still be scores of people who dream of being as cool as Dylan. God knows I'd love to be able to inspire such widespread reverence at seventy.
    Indeed, only during the horribly strained choruses of A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall did he even come close to embodying the criticism with which he's often levied these days. However, this can be forgiven of an artist capable of such an encore: Like A Rolling Stone, All Along The Watchtower, Blowing In The Wind. Three of the most intense, beautiful and timeless compositions from the entire rock canon whipped out successively and with fiery aplomb by the very man who originally penned such masterpieces. I live for times like that.
    So, yes, our realisation that we'd have a great day came to be. We had a great day. It unfortunately has made a tedious type out of me, though, as it's now probably the case that I'll extol the virtues of Dylan at the top of my voice at every given opportunity.
    I apologise in advance.

Idea For A Film

2011-06-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

    Norman Tartell has hooked himself up to a life-support machine which is rigged to cut-off should the phone ever ring. He figures that as far as bridge-burnings go, there are worse ways to ensure that you're never bothered by anyone ever again.
    He's been bothered for a while by a three-pronged interlinked conspiracy against his happiness. It consists of an online social networking platform in which it's the 1920s and everyone's fabulous; a company who specialise in fixing leaks and the mascot from his local cinema who resembles an anthropomorphic red jigsaw piece. Each of them has designs on his girlfriend.
    He remembers their first meeting. She ran the Scarlet Bistro, and one rainy afternoon he found himself entangled in her fairy-lights. It wasn't a pleasant place to be trapped. Threaded as they were through a meticulously trimmed hedge which bordered her patio, the more he struggled the more he was prodded and pricked by errant twigs and branches.
    She had come to his rescue armed only with a smile and a pair of ELC-branded safety scissors. Over coffee, they had taken it from there.
    But now she traded electronic kudos using a sunglasses-wearing flapper of an avatar wrapped in a lambs-wool shawl taking deep drags from a slender cigarette holder. She had the leak-repair company on autodial stored under Hotkey #3, and she was frequently spotted challenging corporate logos to races across the frozen lake.
    But Norman's troubles had really begun when he paid a visit to his old flat to pick up his post. Pausing at the front door, he realised that by just closing his eyes he could still picture everything as it had been – right down to the patterns the dust made as they fell on the hardwood floors. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to stomach seeing previously precious floor-space being used in offensively different ways by offensively anonymous people, with a sigh he abandoned his misdelivered mail and returned home.
    It was as close as he had come to his past in a long while. It was too much. He sat in the armchair in the corner and struggled to fight back the tears. A part of him knew though that at the very least, were he to cry it might open up the doors of communication. That might help. That might be a start.
    But with a smile his mother cast a blanket over him. She had done it in jest, but it made him feel like a statue; a relic protected from the dust, from age.
    Daring to take a peek from under the blanket, he saw that his entire family had gathered in an attempt to restore order to their cluttered household. They were trying to make it less like an exploded attic and more like a place in which they could live once more.
    Joining in, amongst the old board-games and letters of recommendation he found a beaker full of diced livers on the mantel-piece. He could remember carefully slicing them for dinner years ago. Had they been stood on the mantel-piece all this time? Gingerly he sniffed them. They smelled fine, so he popped one in his mouth and savoured the acrid juices as they spread over his tongue like cracks across ice. He offered them around to his gathered family, but nobody else would try any.
    They were, at that time, partaking in an experimental new shopping system in which all the local residents of an area had their own personal shelf in the back-rooms of the supermarket. Instead of shopping, you loaded any required wares onto your shelf a week in advance of taking them home. The supermarket then employed a surveyor to take stock of each of the different shelves. He would carefully write down everything which had been loaded and affix his report to the shelf-edge. When, one week hence, it came time to collect your wares, it was simply a case of presenting this report to the till, where it would be tallied and you would be charged accordingly.
    Though inter-shelf theft and dishonesty was rife, the system was proving to be very popular with both the store and the customers. The government claimed that it would save billions annually, but never quite explained how.
    It was Norman's turn to collect their gatherings from the shelf. Arriving, he found their shelf to be covered in dust. Several empty cardboard boxes were stacked alongside their usual beloved potted-cakes and tins of liver. Evidently, assuming the shelf to be abandoned, the store had taken to using it for their own storage.
    The stacked wares having long since passed their use-by dates, Norman skulked his way home in a state of dejection. Walking down the high street he noticed several severe discrepancies between his mental image of the store-fronts and the actual picture he saw before him. The last time he had come this way all were dressed impeccably in their hats and scarves and galoshes. Beaming butchers picked by hand the tenderest loins of liver for their cherished customers. Librarians would declare via tannoy each book they found to have a happy ending. People would treasure each sip of coffee they ingested whilst sat for hours on the patio of the Scarlet Bistro.
    Now, though, bright-red metallic sheets covered the fronts of all the buildings. The streets were clean and empty and Norman had to admit that the towering red edifices cast a commanding figure against bright blue skies. But it wasn't the street he knew. Everyone had been evicted for not using the public spaces as the architect had planned.
    Across the street a panel opened on the front of one of the buildings revealing a screen on which a red anthropomorphic jigsaw piece winked at whoever was looking.
    “It's going to kill the cinema,” said a voice. Norman looked and saw a rotund old man in a green trench coat and a flat-peaked hat frowning at the screen.
    “It already has,” said Norman.
    The old-man agreed and started talking about money whilst licking his lips suggestively. Fearing for the integrity of his sister, who Norman remembered had once taken to walking the aisles of the supermarket topless, Norman rushed home.
    When he got there he found all rooms to be immaculate but empty. Dust blankets had been cast over all items of furniture to the effect that faded off-white ghosts stared back impassively from every room.
    He called for his family, but received no reply.
    In another age it would have been him applying the ice-skates and challenging that corporate logo to a race across the frozen lake. His feat would be performed at the violet-hour before a breath-taking sunset. With a grin he would overtake the steadfast corporate logo and, assuming it to be a red anthropomorphic jigsaw piece, would instead find it to be a pale-blue wrench painted to look like a postage stamp.
    Their desperate race would take them through the golden 1920s pool party where, amongst the crowd, Norman would spot his darling flapper, cigarette holder in hand. Though her sunglasses would make it difficult to read her expression, Norman would nonetheless be able to read a glimmer of admiration in her countenance.
    He was back. He was doing it again. He was here, he was now, when for so long he had been then.
    And, on his victory lap, Norman would remember her hastily loading a tangled mass of wire into the alarm-box which doubled as her safety deposit box nestled amongst the leaves surrounding her patio.
    Having embraced her immediately afterwards, Norman had never been able to see clearly the contents of this box. Now, though, he was closer than he'd ever been before. He would see. Any second now, he would know. For the very first time, all would be clear, all would be wonderful again.
    But then the phone began to ring.
    Nobody will ever know how Norman's story ends.

Film Challenge 2011 - Part One

2011-05-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

I've undertaken a challenge this year. I'm to watch one hundred films I've never seen before by midnight on December 31st. So far, so good. Less than halfway through the year, and I've seen fifty one. I'm therefore Making Good Time.

Let me run through, briefly, the first half of 2011 in terms of the fresh films I've seen.

The X-Files: I Want To Believe (Viewed January 6)
In which Billy Connolly plays a castrated ex-paedophile psychic priest with such admirable dignity and restraint that, y'know, you just can't help but feel for him as he falls to his knees overcome by the force of his visions.

The Weatherman (January 7)
Nicholas Cage plays a TV weatherman with a blossoming interest in archery. His son, played by Tony from Skins, is in the process of being groomed; whilst Michael Caine worries about his granddaughter's camel toe.

127 Hours (January 8)
In which a man has to cut his arm off after getting it trapped under a rock. Features excellent use of Festival by Sigur Ros and a most appropriate sound-effect for slicing through an exposed nerve with a blunt knife.

Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (January 8)
It's a Russ Meyer film! You know what that means, right lads? There's a gigolo who talks like a Shakespearian clown and a completely unsubtle reference to the Manson killings which, considering Sharon Tate starred in the original, is pretty offensive. We'll pin that one on Roger Ebert, who, if you remember, doesn't possess a soul beyond those which he's stolen from unborn children.

Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging (January 9)
Like an anaemic, watered-down, heterosexual Sugar Rush; early on in my mission I demonstrated the lengths to which I was prepared to go in order to succeed. Alan Davies was in this.

Run, Fatboy, Run (January 9)
Simon Pegg is red of face and out of breath – plus you get to see Dylan Moran's exposed posterior and Hank Azaria in running shoes. Also look out for a cameo from director David Schwimmer. He plays “The Man Who Hands Simon A Pint On His Victory Lap”. A role he was born to play, truly.

Constantine (January 12)
I started reading the Hellblazer comics almost immediately after seeing this, so within days I was dumbfounded as to just how wrong they'd managed to get everything. Still. Terrifying visions of hell and one of the best cinematic Satans I've ever seen. Shall we just pretend it's not supposed to be John Constantine and treat it as a standalone Keanu Reeves vehicle, then?

True Romance (January 23)
This has dated terribly. Future cultural historians will use it to demonstrate how people used to think in the nineties. The scene between Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper, though – that can stay. I'll give them that.

The King's Speech (January 29)
The king's speech impediment is so cute that I spent the entire two hours just wanting to hug him. Geoffrey Rush was wonderful as “The Australian What Had To Help Him”, and the montage of inspired Britons listening to the titular speech was, I found, most affecting.

Horror Express (February 9)
Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing take care of some zombie cossacks and fossilised gorillas on a train speeding across frozen tundra using little more than their English Heritage memberships.

They Live (February 10)
Because I'm naturally inclined to pity anyone or anything shown watching television, at the very last minute I found myself siding with the horrific aliens in this film. One of the closing images is of a horrible distorted purple face engrossed in the show he's watching. It got me “right there”.

Never Let Me Go (February 13)
The book was better. So much so, in fact, that I gleamed very little joy indeed from this maudlin clone-romp. They missed the point entirely.

The Royal Tenenbaums (February 17)
This masterpiece (ho yes) has furnished me with a go-to answer should anyone ever pose to me the question of “if you could live in any house in any film, which would it be?” Cosy mansions built out of wood just do it for me. They just do.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (February 19)
Beautiful autumnal stop-motion aesthetic and some pretty adult themes for an animated feature – mix in Bill Murray, Jarvis Cocker and Michael Gambon and you can't really go wrong – and they don't. Ever. Go wrong, that is.

Where The Wild Things Are (February 19)
For a film about big cuddly furry films, this is pretty serious stuff – the tone's got far more in common with the likes of My Sister's Keeper than, say, Time Bandits. I wasn't ready; I need to see it again. Gorgeous soundtrack.

Coraline (February 19)
I may remember 2011 as, amongst other things, the year in which I totally “got into” Neil Gaiman. And, I'll always remember, it all started with Coraline. It's enchanting throughout, a feast to look at, and some of it is genuinely terrifying.

Shine A Light (February 21)
This is a Rolling Stones concert film recorded on their Bigger Bang tour as directed by Martin Scorcese. Jack White guested, but the image which sticks in the mind is a brief grainy, black and white performance of “Under My Thumb” on a small stage which appears to be advancing ominously on the audience.

American Pop (February 25)
I can't shake this one from my mind. It'll be with me now for the rest of my life. It obviously moved me on such a profound level that I welcome its haunting. Essentially the story of several generations of an American family told through the history of the nation's pop music, it's a very strong contender for the very best piece of animation I've ever had the intense pleasure of witnessing.

Crumb (February 28)
This just confirmed a suspicion I've harboured for quite a while now: Robert Crumb is a bad, bad man. Spending almost two hours in close cahoots with him and his troubled family makes for some deeply disturbing viewing. Horror films dream of being this creepy.

The Fog (March 3)
Shadowy ghost pirates with glowing eyes emerge from the titular fog and advance upon our hero's stalled car. Says Ryan: “Oh, you scary bastards”.

Lifeforce (March 4)
An apparent attempt to craft a film about which people can say “man, that film's got everything”, this film truly has got it all – A beautiful naked alien lady wanders the land drinking blood from people who become zombies or something – I can't really remember – but it ends with London in smoke under a military quarantine – fighting in the streets and a possessed Patrick Stewart in a homoerotic sub-plot.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (March 5)
Like Saw, but good. Why? Because there's real sympathy and depth for the psychopathic Dr. Phibes, Vincent Price is in it, it doesn't take itself too seriously and it features a creepy band comprised entirely of uncanny Victorian automatons. Must see the sequel.

Story Of One Crime (March 10)
The next few are from a boxset of Russian animation into which we dipped one fateful night. This one takes a quasi-constructivist aesthetic in order to tell - using mainly stark colours, simple shapes and very creative sound-effects – the humorous story behind an apparently random act of violence.

The Glass Harmonica (March 10)
Take the surreal collage look of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine film but replace the psychedelic good-vibes with a communist nightmare which deals with conformity and oppression. Like a bad dream, but it's such an intriguing world that you don't quite want to wake up just yet.

Tale of Tales (March 10)
From him what brought you The Hedgehog in the Fog comes this hazy memory of an animated masterpiece which is frequently praised as the absolute finest that this medium has to offer. The visuals are almost impossible to put into words, but it's something like staring into a bonfire and making out shapes amid the flickering, smouldering embers. Words, though, will never do it justice. It must be seen to be believed. Except, this isn't the sort of thing you “see”. It's the sort of thing you “feel”.

Ghostwatch (March 14)
The mocked-up live séance thing which everyone thought was real. Craig Charles is in it, and Michael Parkinson is possessed by a malevolent presence which calls itself Mr. Pipes. I was convinced that I was utterly desensitised; that never again would I find a film to be in any way scary. But then I saw this and was, quite honestly, reluctant to sleep with the lights on.

Fears of the Dark (March 16)
An animated horror portmanteau which, true to form, is of varying quality. Some of it's mediocre, some of it's bad, and a lot of it's very bad. It all looks incredible, though, and the story about the crocodile is wonderfully atmospheric. The framing scenes, though, in which an old man sets his rabid dogs on people and cackles as, at one point, a screaming young woman's pudenda is apparently munched to a bloody mush is coarse, pointless and just plain nasty.

Infamous (March 27)
Now, this I really liked. It tells the story of Truman Capote as he researches the book that would be “In Cold Blood”. Daniel Craig plays the incarcerated murderer with whom, it's implied, Truman develops a homosexual attachment, whilst Sandra Bullock plays a writer's-block besotted Harper Lee. Some intense performances and some moments of almost unbearable tension and poignancy.

Lonesome Jim (March 28)
I could relate to this one, in which a struggling young writer is forced to move back into the old family home. I loved his collage of admired writers which he hung on his wall – I might make one of my own. The family life is shown to be stifling to the point of madness, but ultimately the story's one of redemption through appreciation of the simpler things in life. Beautiful. Directed by Steve Buscemi!

The Big Easy (April 4)
A New Orleans corruption battling extravaganza! I was really looking forward to this, but ultimately found myself to be quite disappointed. Not a lot was made of the setting, and not a lot actually happened. Slow and dated. Shame.

Submarine (April 5)
Richard Ayaode's directorial debut ticked every single one of my boxes. It even ticked some boxes which I didn't know needed ticking. It seems that I absolutely needed to see Paddy Considine as a perverse wizard who perceives the inner colour of all around him. This film also did the impossible in making me not just appreciate the music of Alex Turner, but enjoy it.

District 9 (April 6)
The poignant, brutal apartheid subtext gives this film its vitality and urgency, but I'll always remember it for the insane bipedal death robot with the abilities to create magnetic fields in which bullets are trapped in mid-air. Lots of exploding heads and bodies, too, but the thing which sticks with me the most is the infant alien who just wants to play hide-and-seek. Even cuter than Bambi.

Bottle Rocket (April 9)
Luke Wilson's acting debut, Wes Anderson's directing debut, and Owen Wilson is making so much of a debut that, apparently, he was at one point considering this to be the only bit of acting he ever would do. He didn't see himself as an actor, you see. He was a writer; and here he helps to craft a low-key gem in which most every trope which makes Mr. Anderson one of the finest talents in film-making today can be seen in embryonic form.

Vault of Horror (April 9)
Another portmanteau horror fest, this one was edited for violence in quite a bizarre manner which saw all of the edited scenes replaced with an almost subliminal doctored freeze-frame. It also features a “dazzling young beauty” who is, in reality, pushing fifty.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (April 13)
I really wasn't expecting such surreal imagery. I love how, in this day and age, Jerry Bruckheimer produced crowd-pleasing blockbusters based upon theme park rides are allowed to have scenes in which the sky is the sea and the sea is a sky through which an almighty galleon sails upside down.

Monsters (April 15)
Of course, it's a question of “who're the real monsters?!” - but the main thing to remember here is that even though it was made on a shoestring budget with the lion's share of post-production and CGI being done on a home PC, it's one of the only films I've ever seen which I believe would justify the existence of HD. It's stunningly beautiful, very moving, and the giant luminous floating psychedelic octopi are spellbinding.

Factory Farmed (April 15)
A short film made by the director of Monsters; it was apparently the sheer inventive quality of this which got him the gig in the first place. It was part of a challenge issued to a whole host of film-makers as part of some sci-fi festival. Each were given a prop, a line of dialogue and twenty-four hours, and told to make of that what they will. The results here are a bleak yet atmospheric dystopian nightmare which hints at the ethical dilemmas of cloning – all in less than ten minutes, with, yes, but one line of dialogue. It's everything Never Let Me Go should have been, then.

The Constant Gardener (April 17)
In Ralf Fiennes and Bill Nighy, this unites two of my favourite actors in one tense dinner scene which, for some reason, appears to be told from the point of view of a nearby statue which points an accusing finger throughout. There's also Raquel Weisz being all fiery, smouldering and inspirational; and the plot concerns the aids epidemic and the evil bastard pharmaceutical trade. Oh, and Pete Posthelthwaite's there, all sunburned like. It's a good film.

Hostage (April 18)
Bruce Willis is a down-at-the-heel cop with an estranged family – called in for one last job – it's like Die Hard, only it takes itself a lot more seriously. Soon, though, things descend into a cross between Home Alone and Panic Room, and it ends up as a sort of Cape Fear/Breakfast Club hybrid. It really wasn't bad. It was Gritty.

Mimic (April 22)
I remember being morbidly fascinated by this film when I was much, much younger. It only took me sixteen years or so to actually get round to seeing it. I wasn't exactly disappointed, but I think I'd've enjoyed it much more when I was eight. When I was eight, you see, I hadn't seen Cronos, or Pan's Labyrinth, or any of the Hellboy films. As such, I'd've had no prior expectations, so would probably have been in a better position to just sit back and enjoy the giant cockroaches with human faces.

Zatoichi (April 29)
Ho yes. Zatoichi is a blind masseuse samurai who basically takes it upon himself to sort out a small town's gangster/ronin problem in feudal Japan. When murdering, he's one scary fucker – he slays with slow, lumbering intent – but the rest of the time this film seems to play it for laughs. I can't stop thinking about the slimy clerk who does tiger impressions for the amusement of small children. Also, CGI blood. It doesn't really work, but my word, it's satisfying. And it all ends with a joyous polyrhythmic dance celebration!

A Bothersome Man (May 5)
As visions of hell/purgatory go, the bland, emotionless corporate nightmare isn't exactly new, but I don't know if I've ever seen it realised to such suffocating effect. Paradise is quite literally within the grasp of these poor souls, but they're all doomed to a life in which you can't get drunk, and not even sex or death provide relief. One of the bleakest endings I've ever seen, too.

World of Glory (May 5)
Oh. My. GOD. This was grim. It opened with a shot of a naked, huddled mass being herded into the back of a van. A pipe was attached to the exhaust and fed into the trailer. The van then drove off and started circling a field. You could just hear the muffled screams of those trapped within. A crowd looked on, passively. One man looked to the camera, and, in a series of claustrophobic static shots, began to tell us about his life. He shaved corporate branding into his son's head, and worked as an estate agent because “somebody has to”. It's about how we all ignored the holocaust in favour of the trivialities of life. And it made me want to die.

Girl Chewing Gum (May 5)
This was quite funny in places, though was created as a critique of those who look too hard for meaning in life. As such, it was quite a sneering, cynical sort of affair. But, nonetheless, it gets a few laughs. Essentially they set up a camera on some moribund British street and an offscreen voice “directs” the action. So, a man in a beret crossing the road is preceded by a voice commanding “If the man in the beret could cross the road now.” It ends with the camera panning around a gloomy, weathered field. We're told that the director is hiding in a tree. It's one of the bleakest tableaux possible.

The Adventures of Mark Twain (May 6)
A claymation adventure! Mark Twain was born on the same day as a certain comet passed within sight of Earth. 75 years later he died, just as GUESS WHAT COMET was making its rounds again. This film sees him chartering a wonderful flying machine with Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Becky in order to intercept the comet again and achieve transcendence. Contained within the central shaft of his machine are his complete works. We're thus treated to excerpts from the diaries of Adam and Eve, plus one disquieting sequence in which Satan creates a town full of humans, kills them all, and tells us that they're not to be missed, as he can always create more. It's strange stuff, but the overall effect is enthralling and inspirational – Mark Twain's various ingenious quotes permeate the dialogue throughout, and it ends with the inspired device of splitting his personality in two and allowing for his “dark side” to provide the dark punch lines: “Always obey your parents/When they're around.”

Shrek Forever After (May 8)
I got this for Christmas! The final instalment of the Shrek saga, I simply adored Rumpelstilksin and his army of witches who cast explosive pumpkins at their prey.

Gorillas in the Mist (May 8)
You get a lot of atmospheric shots of gorillas in the mist, but the image that will stick with me 'til my dying day is that of the gorilla leant against the trunk of a tree, shorn of his hands and head. All throughout I was wondering as to why the guide described this as a “powerful biopic”. At that exact moment I understood.

Lou Reed's Berlin (May 13)
I was gifted this DVD some three years ago. It's an unacceptable disgrace that I've only just got around to watching it. Berlin is performed in full, and it rocks. The songs are expanded to accommodate blistering guitar solos, and everyone looks to be having such a great time that one might argue that their grins are doing a disservice to the dark subject matter contained within the lyrics. Such arguments, however, are to be dismissed as “tedious”, and by the time we get to the Trio of Doom (Caroline Says II, The Kids, The Bed) – well, nobody's smiling then, are they? Devastating stuff.

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (May 15)
You know how sometimes you see something that's so cute, so unaccountably innocent and twee – that something just has to be wrong? Well, this film takes that air of unease and takes it to its ultimate extremities. It's like fawning over a meadow filled with wide-eyed bunnies – only to find that they're all concealing shivs beneath their fluffy fur. Why is it that every time anyone makes a film about the loss of innocence the results are so fucked?

The Happiness of the Katakuris (May 15)
A zombie musical in which, whenever emotions become fraught, the cast break into a carefully choreographed routine. Similarly, whenever violence looms its gurning head, affairs transform into a kind of warped claymation. And yet, the madness is there from the start. Right from the outset we're lead gently by the hand into this mad, mad, mad, mad world. As such, we never question anything. Always we're in on it, loving every moment of it – tapping our feet to the tragic massacres onscreen. Now that's how you make a film, Western World.

Mirrors (May 23)
Kiefer Sutherland is a down-at-the-heels cop with an estranged family. He's like John McClane, but without any of the charisma, wit, humility or humanity. He's tasked with supervising a burnt out husk of a department store in which all manner of strange things have been going on. The scope is magnificent. This could have been a supernatural Die Hard – the wreck of a building is the ideal scene for a horror – all distorted mannequins and monstrous mirrors in the darkness. It fails quite badly, though, through being the apparent fruits of a bet to incorporate as many tired tropes of 21st horror as possible into the proceedings. Smashed mirrors represent a split personality. I mean, really. And at one point our hero is enveloped by flames which, in terms of VFX, are of a sub-Bedknobs and Broomsticks quality. It doesn't even work on the “so bad it's good” level, as it's too slick, too well made. No, I didn't like this one.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tide (May 24)
And this is it – the halfway point – the fiftieth film I've seen this year what I've never seen before. Ho, it was a romp. I probably feel exactly the same about this as does everyone who's not a professional film critic: I really, really enjoyed it. It's a thrilling romp, so who cares if it's not going to change the world? Case in point: It's got something like 30% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, but it's got round about an eight on the IMDB. Guess which one was chosen by people who actually pay money to go and see films for entertainment purposes? I'd say “turn your brain off, and enjoy”, but it actually has quite a complex plot, as blockbusters go.

So, there you go. Check back in another six months or so, and I might have seen another fifty.

Part Five - Relief Rainfall

2010-12-19T09:38:00.000-08:00

This is the last instalment of the list I've been making of my favourite albums of 2010. Whilst the list has been in no particular order, the five featured in this post quite possibly constitute my five favourite albums of the year.

Villagers – Becoming A Jackal

For dimly lit haunted rooms encrimsoned which reek of incense and red wine – this is music which feels as though it was written to provide musical accompaniment to a séance. I was expecting folk pleasantries. The reality was much darker and much, much more satisfying. It glows and burns like untended embers.

His voice and style was compared to Bright Eyes. It reminds me more of Grizzly Bear – albeit it's steeped in ghostly Victoriana as opposed to rustic Americana. These tracks are gloomy and brooding, but there's a thrilling looseness to “Ship Of Promises” and such bright choruses and refrains in “That Day” as to have a similar effect to the sun peeking through grey clouds – momentary relief, dries the rain.

The only possible criticism that could be levied is that things sound a little too polished – this is the sort of music which would really benefit from a raw and swampy mix achieved through recording live with but one mic in the room. In this way, the album achieved a status shared with only the finest of releases: after but a few listens I was already yearning for a sequel.

Beach House – Teen Dream

Recently, whilst my brother and I were shopping, some kind of interstellar Sly & The Family Stone jam lilted its way from an instore sound system with such brash energy as to inspire unconscious head-nodding in everyone within earshot. It was followed by Beach House's chiming “Real Love” - which came across as a soft and lilting echo when compared to the freak-out which preceded.

“I love this song,” I said. Because I do.
“I prefer Sly & The Family Stone,” said my brother.
“Well, I prefer this.”
“But,” said my brother. “If you had to listen to just one band for the rest of your life, it would be Sly & The Family Stone, wouldn't it? Not Beach House.”

Well. I'll say now what I said then. Whereas the music of Sly is perhaps objectively better, if, in an unlikely hypothetical situation, I were forced to choose but one band to take with me to the grave, out of the options given I would, without hesitation, plumb for Beach House.

The reason for this is simple. Most of my time is spent sleeping, wishing I were sleeping, trying not to leave the house, drinking tea, writing, reading and sleeping. The music of Beach House, then, might not set my world alight in the way only Sly and his cohorts could, but it's so much more apt and comforting.

Lush, plaintive, melancholic, wistful, desperate, gorgeous. Songs like “Silver Soul”, “Norway” and “Take Care” are exactly the sort of intensely sad, yearning yet redemptive anthems which form my bread and butter. What I'm trying to say is: This is very much my bag, baby.

The National – High Violet

Desperate times call for desperate music – and none sound more desperate than The National. It's the musical equivalent of “just getting on with things” - and, as anybody who's ever witnessed any degree of tragedy second-hand will attest, sometimes there's nothing sadder than “just getting on with things”.

Imagine romantic, cinematic grandeur mixed with such heartfelt pathos which can only come from those who have lived through absolutely everything they so beautifully sing set to exactly the sort of exultant defiance for which Springsteen is adored – in The National we truly have a band to treasure for life. Long may be their reign.

Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me

It's the ultimate rebuttal of the tedious “album as dead artform” argument – not just a double but a triple disc set which features absolutely nothing that could be considered as “filler” or as worthy of cutting which flows so beautifully as to make gorging on all three discs in one sitting a desirable and enthralling experience as opposed to a slog or a marathon whilst simultaneously providing such wonderful, endlessly replayable passages that to simply skim the surface is also a very real possibility.

Have One On Me is a gift of a release – the best fifteen pounds one might ever spend – an artefact to be treasured with such a physical presence as to radiate warmth even on those rare occasions where you can tear yourself away for long enough to not listen.

Like the best books I've ever read, this is absorbing and transcendent – not so much heard as inhabited – and I'm at every bit of a loss when proceedings draw to a close. What I love is the way it's paced like all good trilogies. The first disc is perhaps the only one which would work as a standalone album. The second is much darker, much sadder – whilst the third, although providing much in the way of drama, comes to a warm and satisfying conclusion which serves to tie everything up perfectly.

Here you have the most marvellous, meticulous, creative and varied arrangements of the year; the most intriguing, poetic and sprawling lyrics which are all sung so beautifully. The modern world doesn't seem to allow for genius to exist; it seems intent on detecting flaws in everything. Nothing's perfect and everything is to be reduced to cold, hard, scientific logic. To have this album in my life, however, makes me feel as though the world perhaps isn't so base, so cold, so cruel.

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

In a year in which so, so many releases have spellbound, captivated and endeared, it felt only right that my list of favourites should be in no order. Be that as it may, were I forced at rapier-point by some kind of curious lunatic to pick one album as my absolute favourite, I think I'd choose The Suburbs.

My reasoning is simple: It's yet to be proven otherwise that every single one of my friends loves this album. After their stunning live sets at the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals, the NME, for once, penned something so inspired as to stick with me. They said that the band's set was such a unifying experience that people weren't so much comparing their favourite bands of the weekend as their favourite songs from Arcade Fire's set.

I know that not everyone will consider this their favourite album of the year. Still, however, I feel as though it's created a rare sense of unity. That which really endears me is that everyone seems to have their favourite song. Mine's the sweetly pulsating “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”, but I've also heard variously “Ready To Start”, “Empty Room”, “City With No Children” and “We Used To Wait” identified as standouts and favourites. This is an inevitable result of an album full of sixteen unforgettable, beautifully written, beautifully sung, beautifully played and beautifully realised songs. In one way or another they speak to and for everyone. I cannot think of an album since The Strokes' Is This It which has so apparently enthralled most everyone I know.

The really exciting part is in anticipating as to where they might go from here. Arcade Fire feel like “our” band and, at the moment, they seem immortal, as though they can do no wrong. It is therefore with no hesitation that I dispel the highest plaudits I can think of: That this must be what it was like to be a Radiohead fan in 1997.

TO BE FORGOTTEN

Part Four - The Penultimate Part Of This Awful Folly

2010-12-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

Part four of five of my list of my favourite albums of 2010.

Laurie Anderson – Homeland

An aching, searing eulogy for the American Dream itself; a dark and gloomy concept album concerning the credit crunch; barbed and witty performance poetry set to a backdrop of throat singers, squalling free jazz, keyboard drones, techno beats and a very specially “treated” violin. Whilst young musicians everywhere, apparently horrified by the world around them, are looking inwards and backwards; it takes a middle aged veteran to write such songs based upon the terrible mess that she sees before her. That the album is such a foreboding and confusing listen says it all: The feel to dominate the album is one of unerring dread.

Without a doubt two songs form the gravitational hub of this book of fear and loathing: The eleven minute pitch-shifted drones of “Another Day In America” and the irresistibly catchy pounding “Only An Expert” which features the stellar electronics of Kieran Hebden and the searing guitar work of husband and legend Lou Reed. Somehow, both of these tracks together manage to sum up most everything that's wrong in the western world in 2010.

Yet, despite the chilling apocalyptic nature of the album, Laurie's sense of humour is always present and her tone is one of weariness rather than resignation. That's to say that there's still, apparently, hope. That she's by no means proclaiming us as doomed is something of a comfort – though her plaintive sigh that we're reaching for the stars which she thought indestructible in “Another Day...” is disquietingly ominous.

The ultimate testament to this album's worth, though, is NME's 0/10 review which petulantly moaned that they didn't understand it and that only pretentious and boring people will. Plaudits rarely come higher.

Badly Drawn Boy – It's What I'm Thinking pt.1: Photographing Snowflakes

The Hour Of Bewilderbeast was the first album I ever loved and, since then, I've been following Badly Drawn Boy as closely as is possible without incurring some kind of restraining order. That's to say that I'm a fan.

The news, then, that he'll be releasing no less than three albums over the next year was an almighty boon for me. My excitement only intensified after I became prithee to the sheer quality of the material as can be found within the first part of the imminent trilogy.

Photographing Snowflakes is a magical album. One of the first things sang by the man on the first song on his first album I've always taken as something of a statement of intent - “To put a little bit of sunshine in your life”. Every single one of his albums has, so far, delivered on this promise.

His music possesses a welcoming cosiness – his voice is as comforting as a pair of old shoes. This is, perhaps, the most intimate of all of his releases to date. All is bathed in a hazy reverb which makes the album perfect listening for such nights where it's bitingly cold outside yet warm and glowing within.

Autechre – Oversteps

Every album I've heard by these guys has managed to sound unique not just in terms of their oeuvre but also in terms of music itself. Nobody sounds quite like them, and no two releases sound quite the same. Hallmarks both of a group to treasure.

I found 2008's Quaristice to be stunning – small snippets of rhythmic mayhem and ambient beauty which, combined, made for a fluent, challenging and ultimately rewarding listening experience. All preliminary investigation indicated that Oversteps would prove to be their most accessible album yet. I wasn't quite expecting an Autechre “pop” album, but even so, such claims I initially found baffling.

All first impressions with Autechre are of bafflement. But still, when I hear this album today and am presented once again with such sublime rhythms and textures that would happily soundtrack the parts of my subconscious mind of which I'm proudest – it's hard to believe the extent to which I was initially unimpressed.

Never underestimate, friends, the power of repeat listening. So often has it been said that nobody really “enjoys” the music of Autechre. Rather, they “admire” it. Whilst I've never really found that to be the case (I don't listen to anything I don't enjoy), all the same I can appreciate this sentiment. However, I firmly believe it to be the case that even those most alienated by their past works might find something to “enjoy” here. Hell, they might even find something to love.

It's hardly their most “accessible” album, and it's far from their “pop” album – things are as skewed, machinic and alien as ever. But still, the dark world as conjured by these genius textures is one which I'm happy to inhabit for the hour or so of playing time. So happy, in fact, that a genuine despondency is felt when things finally begin to draw to a close. It's like I don't want to leave.

Never underestimate, friends, the power of repeat listening.

Liars – Sisterworld

The special edition of this album allows for you to peek through the keyhole on the cover to see a stretching vista of trees. Whilst the grim rackets and eerie soundscapes which make up this album are far from pastoral, all the same it seems to be an album about escaping to alternate worlds. The lush forest into which you can gaze inspire yearning once you immerse yourself in the rain-soaked streets, dark attics and crumbling dereliction conjured up by these twisted songs.

From the botched murder of “Scissor”, the stifling, suffocating domesticity of “The Overachievers” to the murderous cleansing in the utterly terrifying “Scarecrows On A Killer Slant”, this is a vision of hell. It's loud, dissonant and very, very bleak.

But to escape to the sisterworld as suggested by the title – that's aspirational. That's beautiful. The reason as to why this music never comes across as too ugly or oppressive is because you know that never are they revelling in or glorifying the darkness. Rather, they seem to be desperately attempting to crawl away from it. Ultimately, then, this is an album of transcendence – and transcendence is very nearly achieved on such vitriolic jams as “Proud Evolution” or “Too Much Too Much”.

Combining, as it does, the dark witchcraft rituals of They Were Wrong So We Drowned with the acerbic guitar shreds of their eponymous offering, this is quite possibly the best album Liars have ever produced. Thrillingly dark like binging on horror films with the lights out.

Grinderman – Grinderman 2

The first Grinderman album, sounding, as it did, like a desperate midlife crisis, must have been treated by some as something of a joke. A joke which rocked and rocked hard and good, but a joke nonetheless. I didn't quite know what to make of it in the context of Nick Cave's other pursuits. All I knew was that it rocked and rocked hard and good; and that, with Mr. Cave at the helm, we could depend upon the highest calibre of wordplay and witticisms.

But Grinderman 2 is so good as to suggest a very real depth and longevity to that which might once have been treated as at best a side project and, at worst, a joke. It isn't quite an opportunity for Mr. Cave to let his hair down in terms of volume, aggression or sleaze. This man first came to prominence in The Birthday Party, and his work with The Bad Seeds is littered with such caustic filth as “Scum”, “Stagger Lee”, “Hiding It All Away” and “Hard On For Love”. Rather, it feels like a thrilling exercise in raw spontaneity and improvisation. I hear that Bad Seeds albums are laboured over for months – with most of the songwriting taking place at a desk. Nothing but a cramped and sweaty rehearsal space lit, perhaps, by a red lightbulb could give birth to such vicious storms of throbbing medieval intent as can be found in the first three tracks on this album.

Whilst it's true that there is nothing here as immediately appealing and as endlessly hysterical as “No Pussy Blues”, neither was there anything as at once so utterly bizarre and so strangely touching on the first Grinderman album as “Palaces Of Montezuma”. Also, the searing fire of “Kitchenette” and “Heathen Child” are enough to suggest that these guys are getting better at doing whatever the hell it is they're doing. And they were already the masters. Roman Deities, you could say.

If the next Grinderman album is this good, I just might be forced to start taking them as seriously as I do The Bad Seeds.

TO BE CONCLUDED

Part Three - Actually, This Isn't Going So Badly.

2010-12-15T14:11:00.000-08:00

This is part three of my list of my favourite albums of 2010. Did I mention that this list is in no particular order?

Prince Rama – Shadow Temple

Utilising little more than intricate polyrhythmic percussion, vintage synths and the utterly transcendent power of the human voice in all its forms (from guttural moans to rhapsodic shrieks), here we have an album of psychedelic incantations so dripping in liquid magick as to be worthy of soundtracking Kenneth Anger's “Inauguration of The Pleasure Dome”.

In too short a space of time chants, melodies and rhythms compete with each other for dominance in a fiery roar of noise which sounds as though it were recorded live from the base of an erupting volcano. You do, of course, get the impression that human sacrifices are being willingly cast into said volcano with the attention of honouring or appeasing some kind of fire deity.

The closest sonic parallels I've yet drawn are the mechanical gotterdemmerung of Magma and the eerie insanity of Amon Duul 2. However, where the jams of both bands radiate the sort of mystic evil which is beyond our simple minds to ever comprehend, Prince Rama instead sound like they're in the throes of ecstasy having witnessed the goddess descending.

The Bees – Every Step's A Yes

I don't think I read a single review of this superlative release which didn't, in one way or another, touch upon the “fact” that few people seem to care for the existence of The Bees. It is one of the gravest mistakes a music journalist can make to assume that all feel the same as they do: This band mean the world to me.

They seem to emerge every few years with the sole intention of injecting a modicum of sunshine, happiness and well-being into the lives of all who care to listen. But I don't just listen. Avidly and willingly I soak it up.

Whilst there are some sonic hallmarks identifiable on every release, all the same it's fair to say that each of their four albums has served to offer a different listening experience. Where 2007's Octopus simmered in the more laid-back waters of Trojan Records, the sublime jams as showcased on Every Step's A Yes for me recall the more languid, pastoral and hazy offerings from such wizards as Donovan and Forest. Nowhere is this better sampled than on the shimmering “Skill Of The Man” or the utterly gorgeous “Silver Line”.

Of course, this being an album by The Bees, it's perhaps to be expected that you'll find yourself prithee to a whole array of glorious sounds which betray a pure and insatiable love of music on the part of the band; be it the swampy blues of “Winter Rose”, the breezy “Pressure Makes Me Lazy” or the uplifting tropicalia of the Devendra Banhart featuring “Gaia”.

Every time these guys release an album, I feel as though I possess instant access to such music which compliments perfectly those baking hot days whilst proving potent enough to instil such balmy happiness on such days otherwise too cold or too wet for sauntering. Take that, cynics.

Forest Swords – Dagger Paths

The origin of this music wouldn't have even registered as an issue were it not so close to home. Hell, it is home. This guy's a Liverpudlian. Had this not been the case, he could have hailed from absolutely anywhere else and it wouldn't have mattered to me in the slightest – because this is music not of our world.

It occupies simultaneously the darkest and dingiest abysses so deep that light has no hope of penetrating their surface and the divine upper echelons of dreams and consciousness. In its cavernous basslines you see at once every rain-soaked street, rubbish-strewn alley, windswept hill, abandoned quarry and mildewy cave you might ever have encountered. Whereas in the various jarring organs, pianos and guitars – so drenched in reverb as to dominate any space in which they're contained – there are human faces, stabs of light, warm embraces or campfires sheltered from the rain.

And that such transcendent music should harbour such local names as “Hoylake Mist” is remarkable. At once world-embracingly cosmic yet reassuringly intimate, this music is every bit as familiar as it is alien. It is, therefore, quite unlike most anything else I've heard all year.

I Am Kloot – Sky At Night

I bought Elbow's Leaders Of The Free World a few days before I first moved to Manchester some five years ago. Tracks such as “Station Approach”, written about the very streets on which I was in the process of finding my feet, soon became the soundtrack to the part of my life which I have since termed the “coming of age” years.

Well, this fruit's not so much soured as over-ripened. That's to say that it's become too heavy for its branch and has fallen from the tree. It is to fall to such a place which, whilst being close to its roots, is not necessarily once again amongst them. There it will rest awhile before being picked up and taken to further exciting new climates.

And recently, whilst travelling by night on a bus route which has become far too familiar, I used I Am Kloot's Northern Skies as my soundtrack. Specifically during “The Moon Is A Blind Eye” - unquestionably my favourite track – as I passed by for what I then understood to be one of the last times such familiar places and saw such familiar yet heart-rending scenes as smiles and embraces at bus-stops – I remember thinking – I love this city tonight.

So, where Elbow soundtracked my coming to this city, I Am Kloot have soundtracked my going. It's fitting, then, that the music within should be so wistful, yearning and desperate for both something familiar and something new.

Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma

I'm strongly opposed to any argument which states that “the album”, as an art form, is “dead”. Yes, there are many joys to be had in loading every song you own into an MP3 player and listening in shuffle mode. But how can people continue to hold this misguided view when, year after year, scores upon scores of musicians release work which comes across as more of a “cohesive whole” than as a “collection of MP3s”?

Albums by Flying Lotus strongly support the claim that there's life yet left in “the album” through proving impossible to play by any means other than as a continuous whole. On Cosmogramma, the album is divided into “tracks” seemingly more because it's a done thing than because there exists on this album something as arbitrary as a “track”. Everything blends and bleeds into each other with such mercurial insanity that to even attempt to pick a “favourite song” is something of an impossibility.

Sure, there are standout “moments” amidst the maelstrom – not least Thom Yorke's ghostly turn on “...And The World Laughs With You” - but these are only “moments” in the same way that one recalls certain scenes or lines of dialogue from a film. Rarely will you consume a film in anything other than one sitting. Cosmogramma is no different. It's a journey; an experience; the soundtrack to the best film never made – and every other cliché dished out to particularly transcendent works such as this. In reference to the latter, though, stuff this crazily hyperactive and intense would be fit to soundtrack nothing less than the whoozy and soul-destroying drug-addled spiritual epic “Enter The Void” - but even those retina-searing visuals would be so tame for these sounds that one would feel the need to add the dreadful suffix of “on acid” to proceedings in order to even come close to the desired effect.

“Like the cosmic soundtrack to Enter The Void – on acid” is my terrible, hackneyed summation of this album, then. I'm not proud of such a asinine remark, but little else seems to do in the face of such a kyperkinetic rush of space-addled insanity. This packs more ideas than Coldcut's seminal 70 Minutes Of Madness Mix into a shorter space of time and ultimately offers a far more rewarding listening experience. And it's all the work of one man. Fear him.

MORE NEXT TIME.

Continuing The Spiralling Descent Into Misery

2010-12-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

Part Two of my list of my favourite albums of 2010 which, I repeat, is in no particular order.

Roky Erickson & Okkervil River – True Love Cast Out All Evil

So intensely personal that things, at some points, become more than a little disquieting. Nowhere is this more true than on the opening “Devotional Number One”. Recorded on equipment so lo-fi as to be outstripped by a wax cylinder, it features a scratchy backing band culled from Roky's inmates during his stints in care. Amongst their ranks, it is reckoned, is a serial rapist and some guy who threw a woman off a bridge. It sounds like an illict transmission from the darkest corner of the world – and yet, undeniably there's plaintive hope in his voice – before all becomes swallowed by overpowering feedback – as openings go, this one leaves me feeling cold, perturbed and uncomfortable.

The following “Ain't Blues Too Sad”, however, is a short but sweet hand on the shoulder which has an identical impact as a warm cup of tea after a walk through a storm. Roky's voice ages some thirty years between these two tracks. As it sounds today it's rich, cracked and heartbreaking.

This album is devastating, but that's not to say that it's to be avoided should you find yourself in a fragile state of mind. In Roky's poignant, plaintive laments you'll find very real comfort, for never is hope far from the equation; not even when he's desperately pleading, presumably on his knees, before the dock in the stirring and affecting “Please Judge”.

Okkervil River act more as curators than as collaborators. I've not heard much of their music, but their polite, unobtrusive and simple backing tracks (and brilliantly insightful liner notes) act as something of a dusty canvas on which Roky can daub enough of himself to ensure that this is his story, nobody else's. Though occasionally they allow for feedback and white noise to interfere with the prevailing beauty, rather than ruining affairs this merely acts as something of a reminder that these are the thoughts of a most troubled mind indeed. In no way can we even begin to relate to that which Roky's endured, but the turmoil is there and impossible to ignore. That it's all but overcome by hope and positivity is miraculous, life-affirming stuff.

Gil Scott-Heron – I'm New Here

The liner notes request that you listen all the way through, without distractions. It would be rude not to. In doing so, you're treated to a listening experience which might be short (just shy of even thirty minutes), but is nevertheless brutally honest, stirringly intimate, uncomfortably claustrophobic yet ultimately redemptive. Its brevity merely ensures that immediate repeat listens are something of a necessity.

I picture our esteemed orator sat on a stool before a microphone in some back-alley jazz club lit only by neon cast in a blue haze on account of the chain of cigarettes through which he's ploughing. His face is a deep frown as he reads aloud from crinkled papers yellowed from his prison stints. It's possible to read in his gravelly voice such experiences only otherwise betrayed by such deep crags as can be found in the faces of those who have seen too much. Yet our esteemed orator's not done yet. No matter how tired he might sound, there's still a vibrancy in his growls and a bite in his words which is such that all sat before him are rapt to the point that they neglect their lit cigarettes which, unsmoked, burn right down to the filter unnoticed.

Where did the night go, indeed? I don't think I ever want to leave.

Pantha Du Prince – Black Noise

In a year full of fantastic collaborations – Lou Reed with Gorillaz, Thom Yorke with Flying Lotus – it's Noah Lennox, alias Panda Bear, whose turn on "Stick To My Side" might make the least amount of noise but, for me at least, has the greatest impact. You see, this is music which I hear in my sleep. It seeps inside almost unnoticed – a benevolent audio virus if ever there was one – and stews and throbs in the part of the brain apparently most dedicated to wistfulness and nostalgia. Pantha Du Prince plants the seeds, but it's left to the listener to allow for them to grow.

These delicate, minimalist and meticulous compositions seem specifically tailored for headphones, incense and darkened rooms, and it's in such contexts that they sound best. However, the mind cannot help but conjure such vistas which, though contained, stretch for miles: Caverns lit by crystals glowing blue; light stabbing through lush green canopies and all but failing to penetrate all the way to the forest floor below through which you pace so tentatively. You can almost taste the fresh pine-scented air – and it's such air that's so fresh as to cold-sting your city-choked lungs.

This is pure escapism, and few retreats from the chaotic pace of modern life with which I so struggle to keep pace are sweeter than the gorgeous “Welt Am Draht” - a piece whose muted chorale sounds come across as an ancient ode to a mercurial forest spirit – essential in every sense of the word. I need music this distanced from everything else. I need transcendent music to live.

Four Tet – There Is Love In You

Not since the curious “No More Mosquitoes” on Pause have vocals played such a large role in Four Tet's music. Sweetly looped female sighing croons form almost the entirety of the melody of the opening “Angel Echoes”. Like the dusty opening monologue of an Oliver Postgate show, they instantly pull the shutters down on the world around and and instead invite you into a warm, cosy, intimate and subdued universe in which to spend any amount of time is enough to restore your sanity in the face of all that apparently strives to rid you of it.

It's hard not to think of the album in terms of the stunning nine minute alien broadcast that is “Love Cry”, but all that comes after offers thrills that might be less visceral but are no less vital – be it the sweet cyclical arpeggios of the aptly named “Circling” or the soft and scratchy jazz of “This Unfolds” which serves to leave the sweetest possible taste in the mouth.

But it took a tired yet buzzing mind in a cramped room full of surging bodies to recognise that the likes of “Sing” and “Plastic People” are veritable club anthems every bit as potent and galvanising as the finest offerings from Orbital. It would sound fantastic accompanied by lasers before an adoring crowd of thousands on a pyramid shaped stage – but the almost clandestine feel of the live experience as it stands is perhaps a lot more appropriate.

Caribou – Swim

To say that Caribou have “gone electro” would be every bit as inadvisable as saying that Neil Young has, over the years, moved away from guitars. Mathematically considered electronic composition has played a huge role in every Caribou release – be it the organic motorik industrial jazz of The Milk of Human Kindness or the sun-drenched psychedelica of Andorra.

So, no, this isn't Caribou's “electronic” album. It is, however, their most club-orientated offering to date – the album to which its easiest to dance. Hell, it's not just “easy”. Rather, it's almost impossible to resist. Who are you to refrain from at least nodding along with an immense grin plastered across your glowing face whilst grooving to the propulsive and transient “Sun” which radiates as much warmth and well-being as the entity from which it takes its name? Who are you to even attempt to refrain from churning with eyes closed so blissfully to the strummed harp which transforms, as if by magic, to a peal of bells in the too-good-to-be-true “Bowls”?

Conceived as an attempt to record music which sounded as though it was underwater, there is a melting fluidity and mercurial quality to these meticulous compositions which is, apparently, exactly what I've been looking for all along in music. To suddenly stumble across it in such lush and glorious technicolour was such a shock to the system that my initial reaction was never going to be anything other than bemusement. However, as the title suggests, these are sounds in which it's necessary to immerse yourself completely in order to fully appreciate. This is exactly the kind of energising electronic music which so often serves to make life feel not just bearable, but positively joyous.

TO BE FURTHERED

Second Annual Terrible Summation of Creeping Dread

2010-12-12T12:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm about to write about my favourite albums of 2010. This is a terrible idea and I really should quit now while I'm ahead. I did this last year and nearly lost it completely – so to speak. It wasn't so much that I was dreading the notion that people might disagree with my choices (for that I'd need a readership). Rather, I was terrified of coming across as lordy or judgemental or sanctimonious or pretentious or – well. I was, essentially, terrified of coming across all Quietus or Pitchfork on you. You know what they're like - “We're right, you're wrong. This is the way things are and if you disagree, not only are you wrong, you're a mutant. Go die in a fire.”

To that end, I'm prefacing this episodic list with the same disclaimer I affix to most everything I write: Nothing I ever say, do, think or dream will ever be “definitive”. These aren't “the best albums of 2010”. They're my favourite albums of 2010. Few of them are “in”, almost none of them are “cool” and I've long since given up on even vaguely attempting to capture anything approaching a “Zeitgeist”. No, let's leave all that to those for whom music must, for whatever reason, perform functions beyond, you know, entertaining or enthralling or escapism. These are albums which, in one way or another, I loved. OK? OK.

And because I'm finding myself increasingly pissed off by the notion that something as personal, objective, universal, mercurial and beautiful as music can be defined by such tedious earthly notions as categorisation and ratings (how the hell do Pitchfork justify the decimal places in their scores?), this list is in no order. I am merely writing about the albums as they come to me – in instalments of five. At the very least, this saves me the headache of deciding which albums are the “more betterer”.

Right. That's the catchphrases out of the way. Let's go.

Oceansize – Self Preserved While The Bodies Float Up

If not the best opening trio of songs on any album of the year, few pack more of a punch. “Part Cardiac” is a pummelling torrent of sludgy doom which suggests that the band have spent the past few years immersed in the Southern Lord back catalogue. And yet, it sounds not like some kind of cheap imitation. Rather, it's so worthy a homage that they'd do well to consider an entire album's worth of such brooding gloomy intensity.

“SuperImposer” is more standard Oceansize fare – which is to say that it sounds quite unlike anyone else out there. Loose and sprawling yet so tight and densely layered that whilst on initial listens it sounds like a soupy mess, repeat listens reveal such patterns and structural nuances that it soon becomes apparent that this is a most beautiful soup indeed. Then comes the blizzard fury of “Build Us A Rocket Then...”, in which drummer Mark Heron proves himself the worthy successor to Neil Peart's title of “most ridiculously proficient drummer” through effortlessly pounding out such rhythms by hand as Autechre painstakingly create using their malevolent machinery.

With the exception of the hypercharged and brilliant “It's My Tail And I'll Chase It If I Want To”, the remainder of the album offers a more sedate pace to this opening barrage. “Oscar Acceptance Speech” shifts from its plodding trip-hop leanings into such lush strings that recall nothing less than “Purple Rain” itself. It's every bit as transcendent. “Ransoms”, in its sparsity, would be identified as a career highlight were it to appear on an album by Low.

To sum up, whilst all that came before might accurately be labelled as “prog”, this is, without question, progression.

Vampire Weekend – Conta

Through offering an uninterrupted succession of endlessly listenable, life-affirmingly happifying and insanely catchy songs, Vampire Weekend's debut these days for me plays like the greatest hits collection of a band so inventive as to offer a genuine breath of fresh air amongst the prevailing stodge.

It isn't uncommon for debut albums to offer such listening experiences. It's rare, however, for this to be every bit the case with sophomore offerings. But Contra delivers, and does so to such an extent that I think I can be forgiven for deploying such an American collegiate term as “sophomore”. Especially since this is Vampire Weekend we're talking about.

But in making a reference to American colleges, I did that which one is apparently obliged to do when writing about Vampire Weekend: I brought class and privilege into the equation. For some, such notions are enough to render their entire oeuvre unlistenable. Well, it's their unfortunate, pretentious and misguided loss: with music this energising and vibrant, such tedious trappings shouldn't matter. And they don't. They really, really don't.

But it's live where these compositions really shine. Their shows come across as a dazzling party to which all have been invited. Rather than watering the experience down with filler (as subsequent releases can do), the release of Contra has only served to ensure that their parties last longer than they did previously. Which, obviously, is a very good thing indeed.

The Hold Steady – Heaven Is Whenever

Upon its release, I got the impression that critics were willing for this album to be terrible. It would have made for such interesting copy: After a tentative debut comes a string of three albums which can arguably be identified as classics, after which the bubble could be said to have burst. The departure of multi-instrumentalist Franz Nicolay would have made such boring rhetoric all the richer – they could have labelled him as “the one with all the tunes” and blamed the subsequent slump on the loss of his influence.

But instead we were treated to yet another album of such anthemnic rock literature that perfectly soundtracks all that is important about life – love, music, friends, alcohol – with gusto, aplomb and fiery passion. Apparently not knowing what to make of it, the critics lazily bandied about such terms as “one trick ponies” and moved on.

However, I kept listening. I allowed, once again, for The Hold Steady to soundtrack my life. And, once again, I found it to be a most enthralling and empowering experience. Yeah, maybe they have got but one trick in their bag, but I stand firm in my conviction that there are few contemporary lyricists more accomplished than Craig Finn. His words are at once tragic yet hilarious and are targeted directly at the part of the brain labelled “right there, man; right there”. My lyric of the year can be found in "The Weekenders": “The theme of the party was the industrial age/You came in as a trainwreck”.

Franz's absence is perhaps worst felt in the synthesised choirs at the end of the title track (he would have thought of something better), but this is forgiven: The central conceit of the song - and, indeed, of the album itself – is beautiful: “Heaven is whenever/We can get together/Lock your bedroom door/ And listen to your records”. Aw. Right there, man; right there.

Steve Mason – Boys Outside

So many of the singers from my favourite bands released a solo album this year. Steve Mason's Boys Outside I anticipated the most, and I don't think I've ever been less disappointed.

Some treated this as his first solo offering – in doing so completely disregarding his work as King Biscuit Time and The Black Affair. This is, however, his first release under his own name – but such a move was apparently only made in the interests of simplifying matters when Mr. Mason realised that he had three or four Myspace profiles operating at once.

Though sonically it's got more in common with his Beta Band roots than has anything he's done since 2004, this is, without a doubt, the most mature album he's ever released. That's to say that it's utterly heartbreaking. Witness his pleas to “the children that [he] never had” in “I Let Her In”, or the plaintive lament that “the things I've seen in my life would make you cry” in the devastating title track.

But, like all of my favourite music, it's always possible to drop back a layer and simply allow for things to wash over you – to bask contentedly in such warm and blissful washes of beauty as “All Come Down”. The choruses of “Am I Just A Man” and “Lost and Found” instil a feeling which is akin to nothing less than familiarising yourself with an old friend thought lost.

To truly appreciate these songs, though, I believe it's necessary to catch Mr. Mason live. I would, in fact, welcome a stripped down, “unplugged” mix of this album, though “Boys Outside Naked” sounds a bit too homoerotic. We'll just have to settle for the imminent dub mix, then, which I'm sure will be awesome.

Kudos also to the cover art – plain black plastic on which it's impossible not to leave your own fingerprint blemishes ensure that no two copies of this album will be the same – a perfectly fitting move for such an intensely personal album.

Massive Attack – Heligoland

Most of the criticism of this album seemed to stem from the fact that it sounds too much like Massive Attack. In their typically asinine way, Pitchfork seemed to pan it for failing to embrace dub-step.

All failed to appreciate the fact that such music as offers instant gratification soon stales. I believe that the best music is that which keeps its tricks hidden – the sort of music with which only prolonged stewing will reveal the brilliance within. This is certainly the case with Massive Attack. Perhaps the reason as to why such long periods exist between their releases is because the band consider that such extensive spells are necessary to fully appreciate their work.

And so, some eight months or so beyond its initial release, all that initially bemused or disappointed now sounds fantastic. They remain peerless. Even “Splitting The Atom”, which I originally found to be plodding and unfocused, now serves to perfectly evoke a sinister haunted pier-end carnival drenched in a thick and ghostly fog. Similarly, whilst I attribute a lot of my subsequent appreciation of “Psyche” to its spectral video (my favourite of the year), even stripped of its visuals its mournful arpeggios create exactly the sort of melancholic unease in which I take great pleasure languishing.

I would have said that it'll never compare to the heady highs of Protection and Mezzanine had I not once thought exactly the same of the criminally underrated 100th Window. In fact, at this juncture, the only misstep seems to be the Guy Garvey collaboration “Flat Of The Blade”, if only because it too closely resembles Thom Yorke's excellent “Cymbal Rush”. But that's what repeat listens are for – it, like all of the album, remains thrillingly hazy, cinematic, tense and claustrophobic. It's like they never went away.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Sleeper Conspiracy

2010-11-24T11:51:00.000-08:00

This is Sleeper. Say hello, Sleeper.

They're a band from the 90s. Unlike most bands, there are only five possible ways to react to their existence:

1. You used to be in Sleeper and, as such, you view them either with the same rose-tinted bleary eyes with which you'd view an old flame with whom it was just not to be, or you find yourself shirking in cold sweats at the mere thought of Sleeper like you would whilst recalling a particularly dehumanising job which is now acting as the standard by which the rest of your life is judged. Things are either much better than Sleeper or much worse than Sleeper.

2. You dismiss Sleeper as Britpop also-rans. Maybe Sleeper had a few good songs but were nothing special. Or perhaps Sleeper are representative of a style of music which screams of excess and wilful idiocy and, as such, Sleeper deserve the relative obscurity in which they exist these days.

3. You really liked Sleeper and, truth be told, you still really like Sleeper. In fact, you have a theory that everyone of a certain age has “their” Britpop band who they are convinced should have been as big as – nay, bigger than – Oasis. You are convinced that Sleeper have more talent in their collective pisspot than Oasis displayed over the course of their entire career.

4. You have never heard of Sleeper.

5. You vaguely remember Sleeper and, were you to today hear a Sleeper song, you might not necessarily recognise it as a Sleeper song, but, all the same, you might find yourself remembering the song itself or otherwise appreciating it for whatever reason. Sleeper for you are by no means bad, but they're nothing special.

Well, friends, I would have been number five. I wanted to be number five. But the world won't let me. The universe won't let me. In fact, I am almost entirely convinced that there are cosmic forces at play preventing me from ever giving Sleeper the time of day. Put simply, I am not allowed to listen to Sleeper.

Don't believe me? Let us weigh up the evidence.

I first came across Sleeper on this compilation album:

It's called Suburban Hymns and it's full of Britpop and Grandaddy. It describes itself as “The very best of indie”, a lofty claim indeed for an album which contains nothing in the way of The Smiths, The Pixies, Pavement, Joy Division or The Stone Roses. I got it for a few pounds in Kwik Save when I was about fourteen because the last track, “Connection” by Elastica, was currently rocking everyone's world as the theme tune to Trigger Happy TV.

This compilation is, of course, awesome. It involves a giddily euphoric trio of songs in the form of Cast's “Beat Mama”, Blur's “Chemical World” and Supergrass's “Going Out”. It opens with Space's “The Female Of The Species” and, in featuring Pulp's “My Legendary Girlfriend” (as opposed to, say, “Common People”), it can hardly be labelled as “predictable”. Finally, in that halfway through the track listing you'll stumble across Grandaddy's “Summer Here Kids”, instantly there's scope to market this collection as a sort of aural prozac capable of lifting the spirits of even the most curmudgeonly of moping sorts. I'd go as far as to say, in fact, that it's simply not possible to harbour a deep admiration for guitar-based music and feel unhappy whilst listening to Suburban Hymns. It even features Monaco's “What Do You Want From Me”!

Anyway, between twelve and twenty-four months ago, I again came across Suburban Hymns whilst sorting through my room. Or, maybe my brother picked up a copy for nostalgia's sake. Eitherway, I found myself listening again after abstaining for eight years or so. And guess what? It still rocked. However, whilst as a listening experience I was expecting a flat yet rollicking deep soak in warm and familiar waters, instead I found myself having something of a revelation.

I once read – or, I was once told – of Brian Wilson's experiences of first hearing “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes. He was driving when it came on the radio. Phil Spector's Wall of Sound had a devastating, debilitating effect on him. It engulfed him with almost unbearable happiness to the point that he had to pull over until the song finished.

A song so good that Mr. Wilson had to either give it his complete and unadulterated attention or risk death. Any lover of music will surely be able to relate. Such experiences are rare and, whilst mine with Sleeper's “Nice Guy Eddie” wasn't quite as life-affirming as Mr. Wilson's, still. I mean, have you heard this song?

My experience was basically one of wondering as to why that song hadn't stuck with me from my initial listening to Suburban Hymns. It's so good.

Now, I'm not going to pretend for one second that instantly a need to hear more Sleeper was induced. Rather, I found myself listening to “Nice Guy Eddie” with a frequency only reserved for those very special of songs. Those which break through my outer layer of “appreciating the pretty sounds” into my inner core of, for want of a better word, “feeling it, man”.

Be that as it may, a – shall we say – academic interest in their 1996 album “The It Girl” was created. “Nice Guy Eddie” was a single released from “The It Girl”. Music fan logic dictates that if said album contains at least one song even half as good as “Nice Guy Eddie”, then said album will almost definitely be worth owning. Then I remembered having seen said album on more than one occasion in the music sections of various charity shops, everywhere. So! It'll simply be a case of me snapping it up next time I come across it! Enlightenment will thus inevitably ensue. And, if not, well. For the three pounds or so it will set me back, well – who's complaining? Simple.

Would that it were. Would that it were. Before long it would become apparent that fate simply would not have me hearing Sleeper's “The It Girl”.

ATTEMPT ONE:

Cex in Liverpool circa The Matthew Street Festival 2009 – we pop in to kill time between distressingly mediocre bands. Their downstairs music section is woefully cluttered – rock mixes with pop mixes with Jazz and what have you. Alphabetised? In your dreams. Nonetheless, I find it – “The It Girl” by Sleeper. For a pound! Fantastic. Mission accomplished.

But did I mention that this is the day of The Matthew Street Festival? The place is rammed with people who're drinking in excess – this being the one day of the year that you're allowed to drink legally on the street in broad daylight without being arrested all are slugging cheap lager from grubby plastic bags. One particularly inebriated woman is holding up the whole Cex queue through attempting to flog a small black box to the perplexed sales assistant who has about as much idea as to the exact function of this box as the woman dressed in an egg-stained black tracksuit who's trying to sell it – battered box covered in foreign writing and all. He can't give her anything for it. He doesn't even know what it is! But she's not having that. She's the sort of person for whom every word that leaves her mouth escapes through a scowl to be delivered in a snarling biting tone with an accompanying violent jab of the finger. When even regular conversations sound like an altercation, on such occasions as this – when she's being denied something she wants – she sounds livid; murderous even.

This queue's going nowhere fast and I'm right at the back. Even if she were to suddenly give up on her designs of selling her mysterious, probably stolen black box, there would still be about fifteen people to be served before me. And, what's more, there's some chirpy ska-rap outfit taking to the stage in a few moments! Mission abandoned, I'll buy it another time. Hastily, I leave the shop.

Now, at this early juncture my alarm bells are in no way ringing. After all, it was under my own accord that I abandoned my designs to make my purchase. And when I return a few days later, when it's a bit quieter, with every intention of finishing the job I'd started the other day – only to find that it's gone, someone else has bought it – well, why not? Who wouldn't want to own “The It Girl” by Sleeper?

ATTEMPT TWO:

This is some months later and it's in the Crosby branch of Oxfam. Slightly more expensive than last time – at £2.99 – but there's nobody else in the stop, cash in my pocket, and absolutely nothing standing between me and the till. Hassle free I this time succeed in purchasing my second hand copy of “The It Girl” by Sleeper.

But then I get home, excitedly open the case and find – “The Very Best Of Sister Sledge”. They'd put the wrong disc in the box. An easy mistake to make – the disc harboured exactly the same shade of red as the box. A few days later I return to the store and point out their error. They make the sort of noise which says “well, that explains it, then”. It seems that a copy of “The Very Best Of Sister Sledge” had recently been returned by a disgruntled individual complaining that they'd found the wrong disc within. Only, try as they might, they can't find the right disc for my box. “The It Girl” is nowhere to be found.

They thus urge me to pick out something else in store to the value of £2.99. They have another Sleeper album. Fitting, I think.

But by the time I get home, I haven't got the heart to listen to it. Still haven't. It's just sitting there. Mocking me.

Again, it's only in retrospect that I'll view these events with anything approaching suspicion. No. Things only start to get mysterious after Attempt Three.

ATTEMPT THREE:

This is the weird one. The album this time is found in a charity shop in Clitheroe. Exactly which one has now escaped me, even though we're only talking a month or two ago. I end up with a recycled bag containing a collection of George Gershwin numbers, a record full of German drinking songs (why not?) and, hey hey, a pristine copy of “The It Girl” by Sleeper. Having bought it I check to see if they've put the right disc in the box – I'm not falling for that one again – and, yep, they have. Then I check the disc for scratches. It would be just my luck were I to get home to find the disc to be unplayable. But, like I say, pristine. I'm also endeared to find the receipt for the original owner's initial purpose inserted into the sleeve. He or she had bought it from a Virgin Megastore in 1997, seemingly as part of a five-for-fifty-pound deal. (Five-for-fifty-pound! How things have changed). You see, then, that this particular copy of “The It Girl” wasn't just another copy of “The It Girl”. It's a historcal artifact.

But then the weirdest thing happens. My bag vanishes. It just vanishes. Nowhere to be found.

At first I suspect that I might have left it in the delightful cheese deli where we lunched that afternoon. But no – I remembered having demonstrated the German drinking record upon getting back to my dad's in Bolton – where I was, at that point, staying.

So obviously I left it there, right? Only, it's nowhere to be found. Of course it isn't. Nor is it in the last possible place where it could be – in the back of my girlfriend's car. It's just gone. It's vanished. Without a trace.

This was, remember, the third time I had attempted to purchase “The It Girl” by Sleeper. I am, therefore, inclined to at this point feel suspicious and more than a little paranoid. It is at this juncture that I'm able to conclude that there are certain forces at play preventing me from ever hearing this album.

Of course, the woman in that Liverpool branch of Cex had been instructed to make so much of a fuss that I'd abandon my designs on buying the CD.

Of course, the staff at the Crosby branch of Oxfam had “accidentally” placed the wrong CD in the box before “accidentally” misplacing it entirely.

And, of course, my bag had “just gone missing”. Of course it was “just one of those things”.

And, of course I could order the album from Amazon for a penny (plus p+p) – but that's exactly what they want me to do. And, besides, I just know that my package would get “lost in the mail”, or that there'd suddenly be a postal strike or something. The imminent snow storms? Let's just say that I'm dismissing them as far too convenient.

As it stands, then, I'm convinced that the world simply does not want me to hear this album.

But why?

THINGS WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN WHEN FINALLY I GET ROUND TO HEARING “THE IT GIRL” BY SLEEPER:

1. The skies will open and fire and brimstone will rain down upon the unrepentant sinners whilst the devout, the humble and the meek will ascend from the hell which hath erupted on earth.

2. Tsunami.

3. Localised lightning strike to the centre of my chest.

4. New favourite band.

5. Supremely underwhelmed, but still enamoured with “Nice Guy Eddie”.

6. Asteroid.

7. Robot/zombie uprising.

8. Wonder - as to what all the fuss was about.

9. Disillusioning reunion tour.

10. Resonance cascade.

But it's never going to happen, is it? The world won't have it.

How The Scenester Got His Cred

2010-08-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

As an opening gambit, the following may initially appear to be somewhat convoluted, self-serving, pretentious, meaningless drivel. But please, bear with me. I'm going somewhere with this.

Recently, I had to write an essay on whether History can act as a useful resource for novelists. Before writing it, I had quite an argument with my mum. To sum up, she thought it to be a stupid question: Of course “History” is a useful resource for novelists. Even to write a book in the past-tense is to set it in “History”, surely?

You'll notice, though, that I've chosen to capitalise “History”. On three occasions now, I've even placed it in inverted commas. This is important: “History” is a completely different entity entirely to “the past”.

Briefly, let me explain. “The past” is a loose way of referring to “anything that happened before the right here, the right now”. That cup of tea you made this afternoon. That's a product of “the past”, but, by extension, is it “History”? Well, potentially.

The writing of essays, the theorising, the arguments, the debate, the points of view, the endless rhetoric – that's History. Put very, very, very simply, “History” is any attempt to interpret or make sense of the events of “the past”. That cup of tea you made in “the past”. If scholars later argue that, had you not made that cup of tea, life itself as we know it would today be unrecognisable – then it would become History.

History!

The above question, then, wasn't asking me to consider as to whether novelists could find inspiration from “the past”. Rather, it was asking me to consider as to whether these “Historical” arguments and debates (mainly, arguments) could be of any use to Johnny Writer. Can a fresh interpretation of Event X make for a good novel? That sort of thing.

It got me thinking. A lot of things do. The conclusion I've come to is that everyone – in all walks of life – attempts to make “History” out of anything. Even if they don't themselves realise that they're doing it. This, of course, is just a fancy way of saying that “people are going to argue”. Well, yes. But on a much deeper level is a search for meaning, for definition, for order.

You'll find it everywhere. Nothing ever exists in a vacuum. That cup of tea, for instance – what does it say about you? What does it say about your attitudes toward globalisation, imperialism, nutrition, breakfast? Everything is instantly suggestive of about a thousand other things. In order to make sense of this, people look for patterns.

Now, music journalism. This search for something – anything – it's rife in the world of music journalism. It's not enough to just report. Ever. Beyond (and within) the previews, reviews, reports, musings and interviews is a seemingly endless search for patterns, for trends. And, whilst this search is taking place, there's a few individuals who – perhaps as part of their own attempt to make sense of things – will look for trends amongst the search for trends.

That's me. Hello. The “History” of music goes far beyond the simple chronology of who wrote, released and recorded what. Like all Histories, nothing is canonical. As much as the likes of such publications NME and Pitchfork would like you to believe, nobody's “take” is ever doctrinal. For example, take the chronic debates concerning genre. This in itself is often a nightmare for anybody with more than a passing interest in music. For some reason, it's important that people know whether the music they're listening to is rock, punk, punk-rock, alternative, alternative rock, indie, indie-rock or dub-step.

The real headache, though, is in deducing as to how these billions of sub-genres came to be. Some could argue 'til they're red in the face over the evolution of just one branch of the lush tree of rock music. Metal – does its roots lie in the distorted staccato riff of “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks, or in the blistering sonic assaults of Blue Cheer? Or, we're all bands simply lacking balls before Deep Purple, Sabbath, Zeppelin? And then what? How could one ever, for instance, ever argue that if you start with a single Kinks riff and take it from there, eventually and inevitably you'll always end up with Napalm Death?

Napalm Death: Picking up directly where The Kinks left off.

The biggest question though, is “does it even matter?”. What difference does it make if you're into rock, pop, classical, jazz, anything? It's all music, surely? You listen to what you like and leave it at that. But it doesn't end there. No. Always the search for new genres, too. The more they come to define our times, the better. Ironically, though, the more widespread and accepted become these new terminologies, the more meaningless such terminologies eventually become. Indie music – any music created by anyone not signed to a major label? This has never been the case. I'm sure those legions of post-grindcore skin-heads who fill the bills of countless “unsigned” band nights the world over would have something pretty caustic to say were you to dare describe their music as “indie”.

I once thought I had it. I asked myself, what is “pop music”? I concluded that, pop meaning “popular”, all music is “pop”music seeing as the only alternative would be “unpop music”. Unpopular. And who listens to that? Nobody. Therefore, all music is “pop music”,as all music is in some way “popular”. This argument, however, died on its arse the second a part of me asked, “what about Gary Glitter?”.

No, the only reason any of these debates ever takes place – the only reason we're ever so argumentative in regards to genre – is because of the crucial question of identity. We define ourselves in terms of the music we listen to. It never suffices to just say “I like music”, because everyone likes music. No shit! What sort of music do you like? I need to know, because I need to know as to whether you count as a human being.

This is why the aforementioned NME is so keen on identifying “new” genres. The more trimmings, the better. Every time they “identify” a new “movement”, it always comes hand in hand with an entire lifestyle. Often – that is, always – the lifestyle will come to be more important than the music itself. Who cares about music? It all sounds so similar anyway. The clothes, though – the clothes! - and the drugs, and the glow sticks, and the attitude – the attitude, man – that's where it's at.

Pictured: Culture

Over the past decade, the NME has been desperate to find a “movement” which would define a generation as succinctly and effectively as had disco and punk in the '70s, Acid-House and Britpop in the '90s. Every year there seemed to be something new. It began, if I recall correctly, with the “New Rock Revolution”. The Strokes. The White Stripes. Rock music was exciting again! Suddenly everyone pretended that they'd only ever admitted to listening to Travis for lack of anything better to listen to. However, this “New Rock Revolution” didn't seem to last. I'm not sure why. Perhaps the rehashed garage-rock was too sonically similar to a lot that had come before. Whatever the case, they were in no time at all looking for something new.

Then came 2003. Remember 2003? They proclaimed it to be “the third summer of love”. The first revolved around Woodstock, Hendrix, LSD; the second around 808 State, ecstasy. Well, third times a charm! Once again the NME had identified a cluster of bands who seemed to have a similar agenda – sunshine! Hazy, summery psychedelic music. The Bees, The Polyphonic Spree, The Thrills. They even had a unifying drug of choice – mushrooms. Well, maybe not The Polyphonic Spree. Or The Thrills. Or...anyone. Probably not even The Bees. Nevertheless, though, that third “summer of love” was recognised as the high-point for this new “shroomadelica” movement. Psychedelic music made on mushrooms rather than LSD, you see. I kid you not.

The future!

Well, this didn't last, either. Goddammit, must have shouted the NME. How are we supposed to define ourselves or anyone if music continues to insist upon being so transient? Lucky for them, though, after an extremely short lived “summer of ska” - (which consisted of nothing more than an album by a Liverpool band called The Dead 60s and a new brass section for The Ordinary Boys – both of whom opened for Morrissey. Now that's a movement!) - came a slew of cool new British bands.

This was very important. A new revolution! The already, by this point, ridiculed “New Rock Revolution” was pretty much solely an American affair. Now, though, there were suddenly British bands to care about. Franz Ferdinand. The Futureheads. Maximo Park. Bloc Party. The Kaiser Chiefs. Gang of Four were suddenly, it seems, the most influential band of the past ever. Everyone sounded so angular, so post-punky. All guitars were trebly and tense, all vocals yelped. I don't think the NME ever got round to giving this exciting new movement a name. Or, if they did, it's escaped me. I think they were just too excited by the notion that all of these bands were British. It was “cool” to be British again. But the term “Cool Britannia” had already been used to describe Britpop. And, no matter how compressed and “anthemnic” became the sound of The Kaiser Chiefs, the NME apparently could never bring themselves to declare that we were in the midst of a Britpop revival. No, man. It had to be new! We can't define ourselves in terms of the last decade! We need something of our own. I'm reminded, at this point, of the scene from Jarhead, the Gulf War drama, in which a passing helicopter blasts out the haunted strains of The Doors' “Break on Through”. “We haven't even got our own music”, laments Jake Gyllenhall's character.

Pictured: British music scene circa 2004

Concurrently, a little band called The Libertines were making the rounds. The NME were quite muted in their coverage of this band. I think they described them as “the most important band in the world” or something. I don't know. But, apparently under their noses, this little outfit became impossibly popular before disintegrating in a scummy brown puff of heroin and rancid sweat. They were gone. And, in their wake, came suddenly the search for “the new Libertines”. Cue countless identikit bands who slurred in regional accents half-arsed lyrics about bouncers and nights out over jangly, detuned guitars – barely standing, eyes half-open, soaked in gin, sweat and piss. Heroin chique. Abhorrent. The absolute low-point was an album by a band called Little Man Tate. They called their album “About What We Know”. Music, suddenly, didn't really seem so exciting.

All this, however, was just paving the way for a monumentally successful outfit with a stupid name and permanently bemused facial expressions. The Arctic Monkeys. They took the sound and energy of The Libertines but replaced the slurred heroin nonsense with...well, some people call it poetry. Some rate singer Alex Turner as a lyricist on the level of Dylan, Cohen, Morrissey. Well, I'm not going to argue with that. To each their own, it takes all sorts etc. But, forgive me, at this point I dropped out.

See, it was 2005, we were halfway through a new decade, and it seemed that the NME had found their “defining” band. It wasn't necessarily ambivalence towards The Arctic Monkeys which made me jump ship, though. In their constant search for meaning – their constant making of their own History – the NME were also constantly in the process of rewriting History. It's to be expected, I know. Like I said, nothing's doctrinal. Ever. But when they made a list of “The Most Important British Albums of All Time”, placed the Arctic Monkey's debut at no.2, and left no room at all for the grandiose sonic adventures of the likes of Pink Floyd, Genesis and Yes – well, that was the last straw. Frankly, I didn't even want to be part of a generation which defined itself on such terms that ignored the importance of “The Dark Side Of The Moon”.

Amen, brother. Amen.

I think I got out just in time, too. Remember what came next? 2007? Day-glo, glow sticks, strobe lighting? No? The Klaxons? That ring any bells? No? You want me to say it, don't you? OK. I'll say it. But God help me. You know not what you ask of me...

...New Rave. Yeah. The overall worthiness of a “scene” or “movement” can, I find, be judged in terms of the speed at which people cringe at its mentioning. I think there are even people born after the arrival of The Simpsons who'll harbour embarrassing New Rave memories. Still, though. At least it's not Nu Metal. Remember Nu Metal? It was the worst music ever. Objectively speaking. I know.

Anyway, like I said, it's all to do with identity. Even “History” - as in, proper “1066 and all that” History – all the debates seem to take place in the interests of better understanding ourselves. Indeed, things come full circle the second one begins to use an era's Historical writings as a means of exploring the ethics and attitudes of the era in which it was written. The Historians of Ancient Rome, for example, as well as providing fascinating insight into such cultures who never got round to actually, you know, writing things down – also happen to tell us about issues much closer to our be-toga'd friends' hearts.

They always used to begin their “Histories” with dedications to the current emperor and with summative contemporary accounts of whichever nation or people they were writing about. It doesn't take a Historian to understand just how useful this would prove to anybody trying to garner an insight into Ancient Roman attitudes and understandings. They understood the arch importance of writing their own History. The Roman Empire, then – the NME of its day, public executions and all.

Conor McNicholas circa AD30

All of the above, though, might only make sense to a current (or former) reader of the NME. At the very least, I suppose, an awareness of who they are and what they might represent would be necessary. But that, my friends, is the whole point.

For the entirety of the past decade, so many people seemed to view preceding generations with desperately jealous eyes. They had their Woodstocks, their Orbital raves, their Sex Pistols, their loon-pants and their discos – they had it all! And what did we have? Nothing. Worse than nothing! Too much – all of it transient.

But, don't you see, it's that “too much” which, itself, acts as the defining “trend” of the past-decade. Thanks to the internet, music quickly became a lot easier to obtain than it had for any previous generation. More importantly, it became a lot cheaper to obtain. Suddenly it was possible to hear everything – as much – or, as little – as you wanted.

And therein lied the problem for a generation who not only had such an abundance, but also knew things to be no other way. Of course we would initially attempt to define movements and trends in such familiar terms as had worked for previous generations – what else had we to go by? The result of this, though, was not some kind of defining “movement” or “scene” for an entire generation. Rather, it was a mess of genres, sub-genres and fly-by-night notions of “cool”.

And that's it. That's how the music of the first decade of the twenty-first century will be remembered. Not via some catch-all term such as “punk” or “new-wave” or “Britpop”. Rather, via a distinct lack of anything so definitive.

Instead, I believe that as a decade (and a generation) – in future years the noughties will be remembered not by a defining set of bands or genres. Rather, it will be remembered in terms of exactly the means which served to make so much music so very accessible and exciting in the first place. I'm speaking of the inevitable products of such a confusing array of genres, sub-genres, movements, themes and trends. Unwittingly, people already tend to define themselves as such.

Think of youth-culture. Think of punks, of hippies, of mods, of rockers, of metalheads, emos or whatever. Well, pretty soon, to this list we'll be adding such disparate clans and tribes as “The NME Reader”. “The Pitchfork Reader”. “The Blogger”. “The Quietus Collective”. “The ATP attendant”.

To put it succinctly, to that list we'll soon be adding “The Scenester”.

(Thunder, lightning, etc.)

This Year's Susan Boyle

2010-07-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

The World Cup's nearly over. I think.

I'm going to keep my opinions on football to myself. Be that as it may, even the most insane of face-painting, wig-wearing, wife-beating, lager-swilling “footie nut” must agree that football, when mixed with music, is about as appealing a prospect as white supremacy mixed with music.

I could compile a list of examples of the worst offenders (which would include an honourable mention to the maudlin fan-chants which drone out of televisions nationwide whenever a match is played by anyone, anywhere – there really is no escape) but, seeing as this would involve not just listening once more to such things I promised myself I would never hear again, it would also involve dignifying the output of such “musicians” through the obligation to search for details concerning whoever the hell shat out such unlistenable monstrosities in the first place.

But life's too short. And anyway, in the face of countless online resources seemingly dedicated to saying just how shit is absolutely everything, the whole point of this blog was to make it seem like not such a taboo to, you know, enjoy things. Which is why, in this instance, I'm going to keep my opinions concerning football to myself.

However, please try to imagine my reservations and dread when I came across this:

Match Of The Day. The album. Third only to “Jeremy Kyle – The Album” and “Loose Women – The Album” in “Television shows I find utterly abhorrent for which a soundtrack album must surely represent a low point for human endeavour to date”.

And yet, take a look at the track listings as taken from Play.com:

Disc 1

Kasabian - Fire
The Killers - Human
The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition
Doves - Jetstream
MGMT- Kids
Vampire Weekend - Cousins
Calvin Harris - I'm Not Alone
Friendly Fires - Jump In The Pool
Keane - Spiralling
The Stone Roses - Fools Gold
Broken Bells - The High Road
Just Jack - Embers
Iglu & Hartly - In This City
The Courteeners - You Overdid It Doll
Passion Pit - Sleepyhead
The Cribs - We Share The Same Skies
Glasvegas - Geraldine
Leftfield featuring Afrika Bambaataa - Afrika Shox
The Clash - This Is England
The Dallas Guild World Cup Team - Rainbow Nation (Soviet Science Mix) (BBC World Cup Theme)

Disc 2

U2 - Beautiful Day
Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling
Mumford & Sons - The Cave
Scouting For Girls - This Ain't A Love Song
Owl City - Fireflies
Stereophonics - Dakota
The Charlatans - The Only One I Know (From Cadbury's Dairy Milk TV Ad)
Manic Street Preachers featuring Nina Persson - Your Love Alone Is Not Enough
The Ting Tings - Be The One
The Big Pink - Tonight
Delphic - Counterpoint
Bloc Party - Banquet
Primal Scream - Loaded
Editors - Papillon
Darwin Deez - Radar Detector
Kids In Glass Houses - Matters At All
Pixies - Isla De Encanta (From Visa Football TV Ad)
Rik Mayall - Noble England
Journey - Don't Stop Believin'
Baddiel, Skinner & Lightning Seeds - Three Lions '98

OK, OK – there is rather a lot of landfill indie toss on there. And, granted, Black Eyed Peas, Scouting For Girls, Owl City, Just Jack, Iglu & Hartly – yeah, exactly the sort of music which makes me wonder as to why I've vested such interest so far in a medium capable of being spun for such evil means.

Beyond that, though, there's plenty of brilliance, wonder and joy to which I'd actually want to listen. Leftfield featuring Afrika Bambaataa. Passion Pit. MGMT. Doves. Broken Bells. Darwin Deez. Pixies. Vampire Weekend.

Beyond even that, though, the song choices – as arguably pedestrian and middle-of-the-road as they might be – are actually pretty good songs – the sort for which it would be churlish of me to even pretend not to like. You have my favourite respectable songs by U2 and Stereophonics, an undeniable populist classic by Primal Scream – and the opening trio of the first disc? Well, they might not be the best songs ever written, but they're all exactly the sort of anthems which could be happily embraced by stadia full of people who previously shared very little indeed in common.

OK, it's awful that certain songs require parentheses detailing the adverts in which they appeared, but still. Even the token “football songs” are more than tolerable. The pair of them would have been identified as “worthy exceptions” had I gone and made my aforementioned petty and infernal list of hatred and resentment. If you've not yet heard Rik Mayall's Noble England, well. It's rousing even beyond the football context in which it's written.

But why is it this year's Susan Boyle? Well, remember when Boyle first belted out with that voice and Ant (or Dec) turned to the camera and exclaimed “weren't expecting that, were you”? That's exactly what my brother said to me when he first demonstrated this particular compilation to me.

Also, whilst I can appreciate this compilation and am able to at least consider that it could be much, much worse – all the same I don't think I'd ever actually sit down and listen to it, let alone buy it. Just like with Susan Boyle!

Rejoice: For things are sometimes not as bad as you think they're going to be.

What Makes A Good Live Album?

2010-06-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

I recently obtained a copy of R.E.M's “39 Songs” album. Released late last year, it's comprised of the finest cuts from five successive nights at Dublin's Olympia. Right at the start, Michael Stipe insists through a megaphone that “this is not a show”. Rather, the crowd were invited along to what were, to all intents and purposes, live rehearsals. “This is what we do when nobody's looking,” he later says. The shows were organised in order for the band to test out some of their natty new material in a live environment. In doing so, they revisited some of the more obscure offerings from their back catalogue. No “Losing My Religion,” no “Man On The Moon”, no “Everybody Hurts” - but a whole lot of stuff from “Fables Of The Reconstruction”. A casual fan's nightmare; a hardcore fan's nirvana. That said, though, the thirty nine songs as archived on the album – played with such passion and energy – might also be interest for those only familiar with the aforementioned “classics” as a means of investigating as to why they're one of the most cherished bands in the world today.

Not including bonus discs, “39 Songs” is, by my count, R.E.M's second live album. Their first harboured the most unimaginative title of “R.E.M Live” and was released in 2008. It was recorded during the “Around The Sun” tour and, unlike its successor, it does contain such crowd favourites as “Losing My Religion” and “Imitation of Life”. It's no cop-out of a setlist, though. They don't just rely on the big-guns. Indeed, they choose to kick off their set with a duo of quasi-obscure gems from their back catalogue - “I Took Your Name” from “Monster” and “So Fast, So Numb” from “New Adventures In Hi-Fi” - instantly catering very much there for those who love them beyond their singles.

But despite such inspired setlist choices, as a whole the package is rather stale. It's a little too polished and, apart from anything else, just feels somewhat pointless. Anaemic, I'd say. It's not the songs. No. These are some of the finest songs to have been written by any band. It's just the way they're played – perfectly. It's a little workmanlike and, despite a mildly different gravity to the sound, there's very little indeed to separate these recordings from their studio counterparts.

The same cannot be said of “39 Songs”. Compared to “R.E.M Live”, “39 Songs” feels like a real gift for the fans. A Christmas treat, as it were. Right in the middle of June. Its appeal is obvious. First, there's the curio-appeal of hearing “Accelerate” material played in such embryonic, unpolished forms. “Supernatural, Supercilious” is still referred to as “Disguise”. “Man-Sized Wreath” is introduced as a future b-side – and there's even room for the unreleased “Staring Down The Barrel of the Middle Distance”. But beyond this new material is a whole lot of obscurities, most of which is plucked from their I.R.S years – plus a few cuts from their very first EP release.

I wondered – by what criteria did they choose their setlists? It soon became obvious, though. They chose to play their personal favourites. “New Test Leper” is introduced somewhat apologetically before it's revealed that it's a song which everyone in the band professes to love. “Feeling Gravity's Pull” is paired with an anecdote concerning the harness Stipe used to wear when performing it. Most moving, however, is the story concerning his grandfather which precedes “Auctioneer”. He used to have his grandchildren place pennies on the rail track before he departed by train. These crushed pennies would then act as a reminder of this absent grandparent. Suddenly, a song which may have appeared particularly incidental in the context of quite a murky album is cast into a whole new life – some twenty-five years after its original release. Powerful.

Beyond even this, though, is the feeling that, onstage, the band are having the time of their lives. Several times Stipe's vocals falter as he stifles a laugh whilst singing. He's apparently using a laptop as a point of reference for remembering the lyrics to songs unperformed for decades; and on several occasions comments upon how little sense they make to him now, and how he's often amused when reading back that which he wrote years ago. The band play with a looseness and energy all but absent on “R.E.M Live”. They may sometimes hit a bum note, but that's part of the appeal. It's the “warts and all” approach which makes this such an essential purchase for any R.E.M fan. This is them at their rawest, but also at their most playful. They're completely exposed. But, guess what? It's not some kind of monster. It's a party.

This got me thinking as to what exactly makes for a “good” live-album. The quality of the material on “R.E.M Live” is proof that it has nothing at all to do with the songs. Rather, I believe it has everything to do with intentions. Sometimes, live-albums are released as contract-fillers. Sometimes they're released as an awful means of milking as much money as is inhumanely possible from a cash cow boon. Sometimes they're released to quench the first for novelty in the down-time between releases. In short, sometimes they're awful, cynical, moribund vehicles for evil with no merit at all. These ones, however, are pretty easy to spot. Usually (though not always) they bear criminally unimaginative titles. “BAND X – LIVE” - look out for those. Also, be wary as to at what point in the band's career these live documents were released. If it were just after their debut album, they're generally to be avoided. If, on the other hand, they are the debut album...

Ultimately, though, the overall quality of a live recording boils down to but one factor – does it make you wish you were there?

I have compiled a list of my favourite live-albums. As is always the case when I compile such lists, there are some disclaimers. I would first like to make it clear that this list does not represent “the best” live-albums. Rather, it represents my favourites. And that's why you'll find no “Who – Live At Leeds” or “James Brown – Live at the Apollo”. It's for the crucial reason that I've not heard them. I know, I know.

Second, it must be stressed that these are all official releases. I'm not including bootlegs. Nor am I including such releases in which the live material came packaged with extra recordings. This is why you won't find Pink Floyd's “Ummagumma” (it came with a disc full of bizarre studio experiments) or the second disc of The Best of The Beta Band (because, obviously, it was the bonus disc on a best of). Most annoyingly, perhaps, is the fact that this disqualifies Big Brother & The Holding Company's “Cheap Thrills” as, apparently, not all of it was recorded live.

No – this list has a very specific criteria. All were released as strictly live-albums, and all create that yearning within – the yearning that I was present at the recording.

They're in no particular order..

Spiritualized – Fucked Up Inside

1998's Royal Albert Hall recordings contain almost the entirety of “Ladies And Gentlemen Were Floating In Space” and are, as such, devastating. But I personally prefer this rare, limited edition release. This is not, I stress, included as a means of winning any kind of “indie cool” points. It's not even as though it's particularly “rare” any more, either. It can be downloaded with ridiculous ease. No blood on my hands.

Rather, it's included because it contains recordings of Spiritualized at their most blissful. Whilst a damaged , desolate rage is never far away on the Royal Albert Hall recordings, here the band seem quite happy to be floating in space. And, as glorious as the version of “Shine A Light” is on the Royal Albert Hall album, here it's twice as long and contains about seven additional gorgeous minutes of spaced-out meanderings.

You hear stories of Spiritualized gigs from this era where crowd members found themselves so mesmerised that they unconsciously allowed for cigarettes to burn unsmoked right down to the filter. Hearing this, such tales as told in hushed, awed voices are pretty easy to believe.

Lou Reed – Rock'n'Roll Animal

Lou Reed's released quite a few live albums in his day. They're all, in their own individual ways, worth a listen. 2008's document of his “Berlin” shows features a soul-destroying rendition of “Candy Says” with Antony on vocals (and, you know, one of the most harrowing albums ever recorded played in its blistering entirety). 2004's “Animal Serenade” encapsulates perfectly the stately dignity with which his contemporary shows are infused, and 1984's “Live In Italy”, with the help of tearaway guitarist Robert Quine, contains several savage renditions of material which sounds comparatively limp on record. It's here, for instance, where you'll find the ultimate version of “Kill Your Sons”.

1974's “Rock'n'Roll Animal”, however, is a defining release not just in the Lou Reed canon, but also in the entire 1970s rock repertoire. Here the Lou Reed of Transformer/Berlin revisits his Velvet Underground days in leather, black eyeliner and a studded dog collar – and a backing band potent enough to strip the paint from the walls. In order to hear the full set you need, in addition, 2003's “Extended Versions”, but the five tracks which make up the original release – and the additional few cuts from the CD remaster – are sufficient in themselves. It's certainly the most terrifying version of “Heroin” ever recorded.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Live Seeds

Remember how I suggested that it's perhaps the pragmatics that separate the “good” live albums from their cynical counterparts? Very good example, here. 1992's “Henry's Dream” is quite rightly lauded as one of Cave's finest. The man himself, however, was famously dissatisfied with its overall sound. To his gargoyle ears it apparently sounded too tame, too polished. Hence, Live Seeds.

Here the “Henry's Dream” material sounds vicious. Strings are replaced with wailing organs, guitars that twanged now crunch and the vocals – snarling and caustic as they were – are rendered somehow even more so. Cave frequently sounds livid, possessed, demonic...I defy you to not quake a little when hearing this version of “Papa Won't Leave You Henry”.

In addition, “The Mercy Seat” is howled with brutal, brooding intensity whilst “The Ship Song” is graced with heart-stopping tenderness. There's even enough room for an unreleased gem in “Plain Gold Ring”.

My Morning Jacket – Okonokos

In which, over the course of two CDs, My Morning Jacket tear and meander through a flawless setlist which flows so beautifully. After a glorious opening trio from “Z” begins the unmistakable cymbal rush opening of “One Big Holiday”. The vocals are screamed with unrestrained euphoria and, by the time we reach the solo, I like to picture the hair of every person in the audience as billowing in the face of the sheer force of nature that is this band in full swing.

This segues wonderfully into “I Will Sing You Songs” - in many ways the polar opposite of that which came before. Where the previous song charged – knocking down all in its path – this one soars languidly and seductively. Immerse yourself in the spaces between the notes; it's hypnotic.

To sum up: Spellbinding.

Hawkwind – Space Ritual

Shorn of the dangerous volumes, the stench of petrol, the intense stroboscopic lights synchronised perfectly with the pummelling bass lines and, of course, the 6ft tall topless dancer painted in day-glo – you could be mistaken for thinking that a Hawkwind live album represents a watered-down experience which would leave all lacking; wanting more. Not so. The effect is, rather, the aforementioned yearning. Would that we were there. Would that we were there.

The main attraction is, of course, the unrelenting propulsive surges of violent energy – proto-metal, proto-punk – and with all the visceral thrills of ploughing headlong through an asteroid field with only a faulty auto-pilot to guide you.

But it's when the band kick back a level that this live collection really shines. “Space Is Deep” might well be a blindingly obvious sentiment, but never has the debilitating hyper-real wonder felt when witnessing the sheer vast infinity of space been better evoked musically. Also, once you hear “Sonic Attack”, you'll never forget it. This is what all poets dream of – ominously intoning their apocalyptic verses whilst a group of stoned cosmonauts conjure an unholy racket behind you. “Think only of yourself”.

Radiohead – I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings

Presumably this collection was released in order to shut-up all of those sad individuals who winged that Radiohead had somehow “lost it” with Kid A and Amnesiac. Ten years down the line it's easy to forget just how jarring and disquieting those two albums must have sounded on initial release. “I Might Be Wrong” was a none-too-subtle reminder that beneath the treated vocals, jazz freakouts and strange electronic sounds remained a collection of beautifully sung and played songs (yes, songs) of heartbreak, confusion and alienation.

Essentially, this collection reveals the raw humanity behind some of the best bits from their two most difficult albums. The backwards loops of “Like Spinning Plates” are replaced by an unaccompanied piano, and suddenly Radiohead at their most oblique becomes Radiohead at their most exposed.

For most everyone, though, the main draw is in “True Love Waits” - a very old unreleased number which, performed here acoustically by Thom Yorke, is, simply put, one of the most heart-rendingly beautiful love songs as ever written or recorded. Not a dry eye in the house, and all that.

Wilco – Kicking Television

In which Wilco put in a virtuoso performance and, crucially, sound as if they're having a great time. The biggest criteria in deciding the overall quality of a live album is, I realise, in the extent to which you're made to wish as though you were there. Well, with “Kicking Television”, such a yearning kicks in very early on.

Opener “Misunderstood” contains the line “You still love rock and roll”. Upon hearing this, the crowd erupts with apparent spontaneity into a loud cheer. Because they still love rock and roll. And here they are – witnessing rock and roll live – in its purest form.

Essentially, I'd love to be part of such an appreciative audience. The concert as recorded so impeccably here feels more like a religious experience. The band are tight, note perfect – and yet do not sound overtly polished. Countlessly they channel some kind of divine energy targeted directly at those hairs on the back of the neck – they're pure electricity – and I so wish I were there.

Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band – Live 1975-1985

One criteria by which you can judge the quality of a live release is in to what extent it can be of interest to a completist.

Completists in their very nature are, of course, going to rush out and buy absolutely everything ever released by their band or artist of choice. This is not, however, to say that they're not going to be disappointed. Not everything will afford them with something new.

This colossal collection, however, certainly will. Not only is it the only place where you'll find certain essential parts of the Springsteen canon (the rousing “Because The Night” and the desperate “Seeds”), it also contains a number of hyper charged covers (“Raise Your Hand” and “War”) and some devastatingly sparse takes on former barnstormers. The opening “Thunder Road” is heart-stopping enough, but I much prefer the acoustic rendition of “No Surrender”. A fist-pumping celebration of friendship on “Born In The USA”, stripped-down as it is here it's a lot more powerful, a lot more affecting. Springsteen sounds genuinely wistful – as if he knows that the friendship in question is ultimately doomed.

For everyone else, though, this triple-set acts as the perfect means of witnessing the unremitting live power of The E-Street Band in their heyday. It's the same length as the marathon performances they used to put in and is blessed with exactly the same degree of intimacy that Springsteen brings to even the most massive of audiences. His long monologues between songs are painfully honest and have the potential to make every rapt member of a 10,000 strong crowd feel as though they're being addressed personally. That this feeling is replicated perfectly with the distance not just of space, but also of time, speaks volumes of his potency as a live performer. Here he's at his best. His albums subsequently sound weak by comparison.

Essentially, when compared to R.E.M's dual live-albums, this contains the best of both worlds. Like “R.E.M Live” it contains such songs that even the most casual of fans can love. And yet, it scores the same curio-appeal points and wears its heart on equally as exposed a point as does their “39 Songs”. This, then, is how to do it. Guess only Springsteen's capable, though.

Grateful Dead – Live/Dead

When, at an early age, you begin to take an interest in psychedelic music, inevitably you'll see, hear and read much concerning Grateful Dead. Then you'll hear “Truckin'” or “Workingman's Dead” and you'll think – well. It's a little bit country, isn't it? You'll be disappointed.

Then, however, you'll start to hear things about their live show. About Dead Heads who'd follow them across their country – now that's dedication. How ace would a band have to have been live in order to induce such devotion? Well. So ace that every night would have to be different. So ace that you could see them a hundred times and, moments before they take to the stage, still find that you've no real idea as to what exactly to expect.

So you get yourself a copy of Live/Dead, and it's nothing short of a revelation. This is exactly how you wanted Grateful Dead to sound. Hell, this is exactly how you wanted music itself to sound.

For me, this is the ultimate live-album for two reasons. First of all, I'm yet to come across a piece of music more transcendent that the twenty-three spellbound languid minutes of Dark Star. No other band were able to create a sound so amorphous, so mercurial. Even after what feels like hundreds of listens, I still find myself enthralled, seduced and mesmerised by this seemingly effortless ethereal wash.

Second of all, this – like any Grateful Dead live-album – is merely the official tip of a seemingly infinite iceberg of bootlegs. Even to scrape the surface of this murky yet iridescent world is to stumble upon a passionate community which truly values the pure and redemptive qualities of music.

And it all starts here.

A Spotify Playlist of some of the above. Regrettably, the My Morning Jacket is unavailable. So too is the Spiritualized. In the case of the latter, though, I was able to substitute with something from the Royal Albert Hall album.

Steve Mason - a buyer's guide or something

2010-05-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

Image from The Guardian

On Monday of this week, Steve Mason released an album entitled "Boys Outside", the first to be released under his own name, but by no means his first "solo album". Instantly it became the sort of album which, as soon as it's finished, I find that I've no choice but to simply hit "play" again. Already I know that each repeat listen will unveil new layers, new things to care about. At the moment, though, I feel as though I've just scratched the surface. I'm going to reserve proper judgement until I've been living with it for months, but even on the surface, this thing's very special indeed.

Well, of course it is. It's Steve Mason. I've been a fan of his work for about six years now. So, as a tribute and a celebration of Boys Outside, for what might well be the first time, I'm going to compile a "definitive buyer's guide" of his work. I place "definitive" between the old inverted commas because who the hell am I to judge?

We'll start, as is usually the case, from the beginning:

The Beta Band - The Three EPs (1998)

Often mistaken as their "debut", but the clues in the title. This isn't so much an album as a collection of the first three EPs as recorded by The Beta Band: Champion Verses (1997), The Patty Patty Sound (1998) and Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos (1998). Each EP contains four songs, and each feels like a seperate unified work. Be that as it may, over twelve songs there's a listening experience which feels cohesive and whole, in no way fragmented. This to me suggests a unity of vision which was inherent right from the outset.

Marvel as I (almost) speak of opener "Dry The Rain" without mentioning its inclusion in High Fidelity! You see, this is one of the most beautiful songs as ever recorded by any band, ever. It deserves to be so much more than "the song from High Fidelity". As a song, it's like a slowly opening curtain not just for this collection of songs, but also for the entire idiosyncratic comforting little world this band inhabits. Those dusty drum scratches and languid guitar chords slowly lull you into a very certain way of thinking, of viewing the world: one that's melancholic, slightly strange, but also wonderful in its languid pace.

It's a song of two halves. The first is soothing, but deceptively so - beyond these sweet lazily strummed chords and campfire choruses lies a world in which one is "choking on the vitamin tablets the doctor gave in the hope of saving me". However, midway through, it's as though the clouds have parted, as though a window has opened: someone's switched a light on, as the drums take on an uplifting hip-hop bent, the acoustic guitar's switched for an electric and, later, joyous trumpets join the mix. "If there's something inside that you want to say, say it out loud it will be OK". As a friend of mine once commented, there's always something to love in songs that tell you that things will be OK. And he was right.

"Dry The Rain" fades out, and it is, at this point, important to remember that we're but one song into a twelve track collection. They're just getting started. "I Know" has a scratchy, old-school hip-hop feel to it and comes across like a DJ Shadow who spent more time on the beach than he did in gloomy second hand record shops. "B+A" is an instrumental piece with a simple riff played over a reversed tape-loop. Pretty hypnotic stuff, but once the song takes off (and this song takes off), it rocks. Ho, does it rock. It's loose with its crashing cymbals and wordless chanting, but there's a vibrancy and dynamism which affords the piece with an urgency I wouldn't hesistate to describe as "life-affirming".

"Dogs Got a Bone" ends the first EP in a wonderfully laid-back manner and could act as evidence in a case for the melodica as the perfect cure for stress and anxiety. Few instruments are more evocative of good times, I find.

The second set of songs, if the collection's treated as the EP compilation that it is, represents my favourite of the Three EPs. "Inner Meet Me" opens with strange echoing bird song and percussive bursts before the chant-like refrain comes into play, soon to be joined by the simplest of two-chord guitar strums. This song boasts an addictive urbane energy which, by the time the chorus announces itself, is enough to induce gratuitous strutting. The first time I saw them they opened with this piece. After this, they proceeded to command.

Next comes "The House Song", in which a series of looped vocal tracks are layered upon each other before a thumping bass drum and a downright funky bassline takes the song - and, indeed, the album - into marvellously hedonistic territories. Midway through Steve cuts in with what sounds like a Japanese rap - pretty bizarre, but this is, after all, The Beta Band - before we return once again to the groove - the sort of groove which, one feels, could happily go on forever. "Monolith" is a strange sound collage which manages to cram every ounce of atmosphere and otherworldliness of The Avalanches into just fifteen minutes. It feels like the sweetest insanity possible. Finally for this second EP comes "She's The One", easily my favourite of every song The Beta Band ever recorded. The first half combines a nocturnal acoustic strum with a surreal stream of consciousness quasi-rap before, as Beta Band songs tend to do, the second half takes us into another dimension entirely. With just four chords they achieve a transcendence which only the best of music makes possible.

The final EP in this collection is, perhaps, the weakest. Well, anything would have difficulty in following that which just preceded. By far it's the most melancholy collection of the bunch, with "Push It Out" and "It's Over" achieving a desolate jazzy looseness - a sound to which this band would return to some extent for their debut album proper. "Dr. Baker" was, at one point, familiar to all, appearing as it did in Trigger Happy TV. It's a beautiful little piece, reminiscent of Syd Barrett at his saddest, most disjointed. Think "Jugland Blues" combined with the second half of "Bike" as covered by Radiohead.

"Needles In My Eyes" closes the collection on a deceptively uplifting elegiac note and, at seventy six minutes and with the more muted material appearing towards the end, perhaps this collection is too much to take in one sitting. Perhaps it's best treated for what it is - a compilation of three stand-alone EPs. It acts, though, as an ideal entry point for those with anything approaching an interest in either The Beta Band or the work of Steve Mason.

The Beta Band - s/t (1999)

This eponymous offering represents their debut album proper. Steve Mason infamously described it as a "crock of shit" in a contemporary NME interview. Something about "half songs with jams in the middle", I think he said. Well, he couldn't have been more wrong. In terms of lyrical themes, bredth of style and song arrangements, this is an album of remarkable ambition and devastating poignancy. It might well be flawed, but it'll likely be one of the strangest albums you'll ever hear.

Opening "The Beta Band Rap" tells the story so far of the band. Reprasentative, perhaps, of their idiosyncratic attitude towards composition or, more likely, their supremely diverse range of influences, the song courses through three completely different styles in less than five minutes. Starting with a chirpy syrupy fifties choral sort of sound - think "Mr. Sandman" - the song soon morphs into a narcotic hip-hop mumble before shifting once again into a Chuck Berry rock'n'roll outro to take us to its juddering conclusion. Scene duly set, mood effectively established, enter "It's Not Too Beautiful". Containing a brooding chugging guitar riff which was totally stolen by Eminem for his "Lose Yourself", this song exudes a very real sense of unease. All cohesion is lost completely come the chorus - where a spooky, sinister string loop (from Disney's "The Black Hole", no less!) is coupled with a pair of layered vocal refrains - "It's not too beautiful now" is slurred over a barely audible "every time I lose my mind I bombom bom bom bombom". Something doesn't quite feel right.

These first two tracks induce a feeling that one is slowly losing their grasp on their sanity. The brilliant "Round The Bend" continues this theme. On the surface it sounds like the sort of jaunty folk-rock that the likes of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci were, at the time, producing quite marvellously. To listen to the lyrics, though, it becomes clear that we're in the company of a most unhealthy mind. Speaking of being ninety degrees to the rest of the world ("Not a lot of fun you can take it from me"), there's also talk of not wanting to see anyone, (not even your best friend), and of disappearing and never being bothered ever again. Amongst this are discussions of the relative merits of various Beach Boys albums ("Wild Honey - not the best album but it's still pretty good.") All told, these are the restless ramblings of a seriously ill-at-ease mind - one that feels completely at odds with everyone and everything. One that doesn't want to be bothered. Steve Mason would lately make public his struggles with depression. However, we didn't need to know this for this particular song to have a devastating impact.

The remainder of the album dabbles in an extraordinary array of styles and genres. In "Dance O'er The Border" we've fractured, unhinged Paul's Boutique style hip-hop, "Number 15" is a sort of sun-drenched trip-hop, whereas "Smiling" is the sort of joyous big-beat dance song that, were it not for the high-pitched speeded-up vocals, could have been a club hit, of sorts. The final two tracks, brooding epic "The Hard One" and the elegiac "The Cow's Wrong", are a return to the dark, loose, almost jazzy feel briefly visited towards the end of the Three EPs collection.

At times this album is frustratingly obtuse - and truly there are moments when it feels as though they're taking the piss. However, it's worth persevering - there's very real depth here, and some of the strangest songs to have ever been recorded. Early indications that "troubled genius" would soon be an apt description.

King Biscuit Time - No Style (2000)

Steve Mason's first widely-available solo release - combining four new songs with the "Sings Nelly Foggit's Blues in 'Me And The Pharaohs'" EP as was first released in 1999. For this it's worth paying any amount of money as it contains a certain little song called "I Walk The Earth". This vibrant, uplifting piece has a very real movement to it and contains what is perhaps the best chorus Mr. Mason would ever write. "Catchy" doesn't even begin to describe it.

The seven remaining songs are of interest beyond that of completists, but often feel like half-baked ideas and experiments rather than fully-formed works. Interestingly, though, his Fife/Fence Collective roots would never shine stronger than on such quasi-ambience as "Little White" and on such madness as "Eye O' The Dug".

This release, though, is fascinating in that it hints slightly as to where he would go next. In "Fatheriver" and "Niggling Discrepency", we can see that the cold electronic roots of 2008's The Black Affair run pretty deep. Indeed, the vocal rants of the former would be partially revisited in the closing track of said album. A curio indeed.

The Beta Band - Hot Shots II (2001)

Their masterpiece. There once was a point in my life where, every single night, I would put this on at a slight volume in order to help me drift away. So enticingly hazy and languid are these compositions that I was usually gone by the fourth track - called, quite fittingly, "Gone". It soon got to be the case that I simply couldn't sleep without the soothing allure of this album. Guess you could say that, for a while, I depended upon it.

Sustained over ten perfect tracks is a wonderfully chilled nocturnal feel - it creates an aural universe which one doesn't want to leave. It also, of course, contains some of their finest and most beloved of songs. "Squares", unfortunately released at the same time as an I Monster song which invoked exactly the same sample; and "Broke". Both would eventually become live favourites. In their recorded form they're comparatively muted, but were they granted the fireworks inherent in their live incarnations, they'd only break the perfect dusty-late night feel otherwise achieved.

I'd identify "Dragon" as my personal favourite, though. Along with "Al Sharpe's" gregorian chant denouncement of idiot politics and "Life's" painful assessment of pointless cycles of violence, "Dragon" contains some of the most overtly political lyrics on the album: "How the west was won/It's a lie, but it's made to sound like fun" is chanted over an ominous drone - desolation, inevitability - this is a dark place indeed.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. I don't think I've got the old synesthesia, but I defy anyone to describe the drums in "Quiet" as anything other than "delicious". And the closing mini-epic "Eclipse" - well, it might be one big joke, complete with a punchline ("so no pizza for them"), but somewhere in this campfire strum might lie the meaning of life, the universe and everything. The whole "people with the answers/people with the questions" thing I also happen to find utterly adorable.

The most poignant moment, though, would prove to be in the aforementioned "Gone". "Will you think of me when I'm gone?" is the plaintive croon over the muted sorrowful guitar and piano chords. With this band now sadly departed, my answer is a pained "yes. Every day."

The Beta Band - Heroes To Zeroes (2004)

If treated as an album by The Beta Band, this one will disappoint. Such as it did for me, when I first approached it having binged for endless months on all that had come before. It's only recently that I've been able to appreciate it for what it truly is - a collection of solid, brilliant songwriting - four brilliant musicians very much in their prime, playing with love, with finality.

In "Lion Thief" and "Space Beatle", we have what feels almost like filler. That said, though, lesser bands would kill for that which amounts to "filler" for these guys. And that which lies beyond more than makes up.

In "Assessment" you have what may amount to the definitve Beta Band statement. It's all there - the chiming, driving riff, the creative use of samples, the propulsive drums and the uplifting second half which raises the song to another plane entirely - complete with trumpets! Similar things can be said of "Out-Side" - a powerful surge of a call-to-arms which contains perhaps the best deployment of a dogs-bark since Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing" and the kind of dreamy meandering coda for which we came to love these guys.

This album will always be worth owning for those two songs alone. However, by quite a degree the main event will always be "Simple" - a soaring rock epic drenched in strings in which they seem to predict their own demise. "I tried to do my own thing by the trouble with your own thing is you end up on your own" sings Steve, before the music takes a step-back and he is, indeed, left alone. He would later hint that it was his erratic behaviour - as well as his increasingly political agenda, that served to break apart the band. Once again, the song matures over the years and takes on a whole new life - not to mention a whole new level of poignancy.

It was to be their last album and will, by process of elimination alone, always perhaps be viewed as their weakest. Should they ever reform, however, I imagine that in the live environment these songs would finally be greeted with the love they've always deserved.

The Beta Band - The Best of The Beta Band (Music)

The "Music" in the title is there because it was also possible to buy a DVD collection called "Film", which contained all of their videos to date. Unusually for a "best-of" collection, as well as offering all manner of joys for the newcomer, it's also utterly essential for the hardcore fan.

A two disc collection. With inevitable omissions, the first disc contains strong cuts from all of their releases to date (including an edited version of "Smiling" which is just begging to be dropped into a DJ set) as well as standalone single "To You Alone" - worth the price of entry alone.

It's the second disc, though, which offers the most joy for long-term fans and newcomers alike. A live recording from their last ever show, it acts as a reminder that, whilst they enthralled on record, live, they dominated. Most of the songs take on an entirely new light in the live setting. Opener "It's Not Too Beautiful", regrettably the only selection from their eponymous album, sounds dangerously loose and even more deranged when played live. "Squares" boasts a long, mercurial spaced-out guitar solo whereas "Dr. Baker", played at three times the speed and in a higher key, sounds like a different song entirely.

"Broke" and "The House Song", though, offer the most fireworks. Both end in elaborate drum solos - dualistic in "Broke" it's impressive enough, but "The House Song" ends with all four members taking to percussion - a tumultuous pneumatic dangerous wall of blistering sound played with a desperate intensity fitting for what would prove to be the last song they'd ever play live.

King Biscuit Time - Black Gold (2006)

Out of the ashes of The Beta Band came a number of musical projects. Whilst it was lovely to see the resurgence of Lone Pigeon fronting The Aliens, for me the continued work of Steve Mason has always been of the greatest interest. This, his first release since the split of 2004, was so long awaited that, initially, failing to live up to my immense anticipation, it could do nothing but disappoint. Over the years, though, it's grown and grown to the point that I now recognise it for what it is - exactly what I always wanted for it to be.

With it being apparent that his political agenda was a factor in his previous band's split, it was perhaps to be expected that his first solo album would open with the most overtly political song he'd ever written. "C I Am 15" is a dancehall Bush-baiting smash, with the war-mongering puppet idiot denounced with such rhetoric as "I've got friends in places that I can't spell". Towards the end, Topcat spits a rap which serves to hammer home the point rather explicitly - an altogether brash yet energising opening to the album.

The best moments, though, would be those written in a more personal vein. "Impossible Ride" I'd readily identify as one of the finest songs of his career. An arrangement of strange mechanical percussion and washes of organ and melodica create an almost Zen-like ambiance over which a heartbroken sounding Mason desperately seeks resolution with a woman: "If you think it's impossible that we're through," he pleads, before detailing the extreme lengths to which he'd go just to ensure that "I can be we". Like a lot of songs in his canon, if sampled in the right frame of mind, it can be devastating.

I caught him live sometime before the albums release supporting I Am Kloot in Manchester. Had I known that this appearence as King Biscuit Time would be a rare appearence indeed (the tour in support of the album would be cancelled as Mason mysteriously "disappeared") - well, I don't know. Perhaps I'd've treated it as something approaching a religious experience. He'd probably hate to be treated in such a way, but I can't help the impact his music's had on me, can I?

Live, these songs had an energy and a groove not quite lacking on the album, but it was such to suggest that his strengths lie more in live performance than in recording. He also played two Beta Band songs acoustically ("Dr. Baker" and "Simple") and closed with "I Walk The Earth" from the No Style EP. For this last one, he even had something amounting to a dance routine.

This album now seems pretty hard to get hold of. It's about £25 second hand on Amazon, £11.50 (and rising) on eBay and doesn't seem to have been released digitally. Perhaps it's destined to become one of those "lost albums"? If so, make efforts to hear it as soon as possible. That way, you can say that you've been there from the start.

The Black Affair - Pleasure Pressure Point (2008)

If he continues to write, record and release music for decades to come (and, dear god, I really hope that he does), this, I feel, will always be viewed as a true oddity. A shame really, as whilst stylistically it may differ from everything which came before, at the same time the quality of the song-writing is as strong as ever.

I remember various statements at the time being made to the effect that, in Japan, he'd undergone some kind of operation which allowed for him to see the world from a girl's point of view. This music represented the fruits of this new found perspective.

Overall its mood is dark and claustraphobic. And, in a move which must have upset a lot of fans, there's not a guitar in sight. Rather, all songs are arranged for synth and drum machine. Live, they apparently performed as a duo - Steve on vocals accompanied by a bassist and, presumably, some kind of laptop. For the first time in his career, he'd crafted an album with which it was possible to dance to every single song.

Of course, "to dance" is quite a loose verb. Luckily, Steve seemingly took it upon himself to cater for every style he could think of - at least in a club setting. The opening four tracks are grimy, sleazy, filthy - perfect, then, for lusty writhing and grinding. "Japanese Happening" is a propulsive industrial drone of a song - the sort for which leaning against a wall, arms folded, pouting, nodding head - would readily constitute as "dancing". "Will She Come" is the "slowy" - for that close, slow dance towards the end of the evening. It's always reminded me of lounging in the sun at a poolside - a looming white tower of a Miami hotel in the background.

There are, though, the sort of songs which can induce the moving, the grooving, and the shaking in the most joyous way possible. "Tak! Attack!" and "Mute Me", coupled with strobe lightings, could get a whole room jumping and shouting along to the choruses. My favourite, though, always has been and always will be "Sweet". With an uplifting, driving bassline and a vocoder chorus which sounds a lot like the "keep away from the guy with the funny eye" song from Brasseye, this track is every bit as uplifting as any of the finest Beta Band cuts. The ending, too, provides the sort of ambient washes in which it's possible, should you try hard enough, to lose yourself - as was possible with certain King Biscuit Time songs. Initially ill-at-ease with this new sound, it was "Sweet" which eventually made me come round to the idea of The Black Affair. It simply couldn't be anyone else.

Regrettably, I never got to see any of this live. I tried. Ho, I tried. We even had him booked to play at a festival in which we had a say in the lineup, at one point. It never came to pass, but this would have entailed that not only would I have been able to see The Black Affair live, I also would have been able to meet the man himself. Now, of course, should I ever meet him, there exists the danger that I'll be remembered as the prick who botched the festival line-up. I just hope that he hadn't bought train tickets...

---------------

So, there you go. A Steve Mason "buyer's guide" or something. Perhaps my favourite singer-songwriter, and the artist I'm most looking forward to seeing at Glastonbury. I can't wait to see as to what features in his set-lists. I'm hoping that they'll be real career retrospectives. Heavy on the Boys Outside stuff, of course, but also featuring much in the way King Biscuit Time, The Black Affair and, if there's a god, The Beta Band.

How To Have A Long Career In Music

2010-04-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Rolling Stones. Image found at clashmusic.com

Look, Jerry Garcia famously said that if you stick around for long enough, you become respectable. Well, this is what I reckon: I reckon that it's possible to identify seven different models for long musical careers. I've attempted to fit existing bands into these molds whilst, simultaneously, I've speculated as to where the careers of "relatively new" bands might go. Of course, it's not exhaustive. This isn't "the ultimate" list. Of course it's not definitive. What do I look like to you? A Pitchfork journalist? Jesus...

As is usually the case with this blog, there are a number of disclaimers to get out of the way first. Primarily, I feel the need to once more point out that my view is somewhat limited to Western musicians who dabble in that which can loosely be categorised as "rock and pop". Look, I'll be the first to decry my blinkered view of the world, but excuse me for only listening to that which I enjoy. Secondly, it must be noted that all perspectives are from today - the right here, right now. I look at the career of bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones with the benefit of hindsight, whereas careers such as those of Muse and Coldplay are still subject to change. To put it bluntly - all of this is purely speculative and in no way academic. OK? OK.

Allow me, then, to share my musings. Ladies and gentlemen, a loose selection of long term musical career models:

1. The Steady Formation of an Intimidating Back Catalogue of Almost Unwavering Quality - The CRITICAL DARLING MODEL.

(Image: contactmusic.com)

The ultimate example of this model would, I think, be Dylan. Frankly, it's incredible that an artist can still produce a startling trilogy of albums (Time Out Of Mind, Love & Theft, Modern Times) after fifty years or so of restless creativity. This model, though, is identifiable by virtue of the fact that even ignoring greatest hits collections, it remains easy for a newcomer to the artist's music to start listening. Out of Dylan's thirty four (thirty four!) studio albums, for instance, it's obvious that you'll start with Highway 61, Blood On The Tracks or Bringing It All Back Home and just take it from there.

More contemporary examples of this career model are everywhere. I'm not, you understand, proclaiming for any of the following to be "the new Dylan". Rather, I just feel that their ratios of length of career vs. quality of output are comparable. Also, it's still possible for newcomers to make that all important "headway". I speak of Sonic Youth (starting with Daydream Nation, Goo, Dirty), The Flaming Lips (Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi etc), Yo La Tengo (I Can Hear The Heart..., I Am Not Afraid of You... or even last year's Popular Songs) and Stereolab (Emperor Tomato Ketchup or any of the Switched On compilations).

The Super Furry Animals and The Animal Collective seem well on their way to fitting within this model and, having heard the marvellous Congratulations, I am hoping against hope that it's here where we will one day be able to place MGMT. I know it's only their second album, buy my GOD is it good.

2. The Rapid Formation of an Intimidating, Uncompromising Body Of Work in which Newcomers are Left to Flounder - The MARK E SMITH MODEL

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This one can be summed up pretty succintly with a simple question: Where in God's name are you supposed to begin with The Fall?! Producing, as they do, about an album a year; and with live shows which seem to disregard anything more than five years old, it's almost as if they're adverse to the idea of "the casual fan".

Similar things can be said of the work of Frank Zappa. Although one could, in theory, start with Hot Rats or a Mothers of Invention album, in practice anything from his canon is but the tip of an almighty iceberg of satirical music-hall burlesque and seemingly hundreds of exploratory live albums.

Put simply, these are artists whose very productivity is at once their greatest strength and their greatest weakness. It endears them to a few but alienates them from many, many more. In this category I'm afraid we'll one day be able to slot Ryan Adams, Bonnie "Prince" Billy and, should he ever get over his current crises of confidence, Sufjan Stevens.

3. The Mystery, the Seldom Releasing of Albums, the Legions of Followers, the Complete Creative Control - The TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE MODEL

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These are bands and musicians who seem to exist in their own little world - only sporadically releasing albums, yet still managing to retain always their status as one of the biggest bands on the planet. The reigns are long, the respect unwavering. People don't seem to lose interest in them whilst they're gone. Rather, they pine - they pine for their return, and tell themselves that there's a very good reason for their not being here - they're at work on their next masterpiece!

It might be a controversial move to place Radiohead in this category, but I honestly can never see their reign coming to an end. The same can be said of Tool, in many ways their metallic counterparts. Years in the wilderness and albums on which, you get the impression, they're allowed to do whatever they want with little to no major label interference. It may have taken them a while to get to where they are now - and it might be the case that they had to crawl through several rivers of shit to get there - but, once arrived, there's no leaving.

And it's in this model that I really hope that we'll be able to one day fit, with confidence, Elbow. Think about it. With all four of their albums the acclaim has been almost universal. With 2008's Leader's of the Free World, the acclaim seemed finally to translate into mass adoration with some gargantuan live shows and, of course, the winning of the Mercury Prize. Unless, for whatever reason, they just disappear, where can they go next but here?

4. The Repeated Failure to Recapture the Glory Days and Loss of Artistic Integrity Coupled with Being the Biggest Band in the World - the POISONED CHALICE MODEL

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From here, it looks as though the only escape from The Rolling Stones is death. Their glory days are long, long, long behind them. And yet, they continue to record, release and tour. Over and over and over - each subsequent record, release and tour a further tarnishing of the legacy.

The same can be said of U2. Who'd want to be in U2? They'll probably never stop being the biggest band in the world, but still, the pressure's on - each tour must be bigger than the last. Meanwhile, in attempting to capture exactly that which made people love them in the first place, each successive album becomes blander, less exciting, than that which it follows.

These are bands who will probably never be "cool" again, but will always be huge. Curiously, though, the bigger they get, the less serious it seems they are taken by their peers. But of course, if that many people like them, they can't be any good, right? Who'd be in U2...

This is exactly the path down which Oasis had been heading since about 1995 before they did the sensible thing and split up. I fear, though, that my beloved Coldplay and Muse will one day descend down this slippery slope.

5. The Sad Disbanding of Everybody's Favourites Out Of Whose Ashes Emerge Such Fruit, Such Joy - the EVERY CLOUD MODEL

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How did the world react when The Beatles decided to call it a day? If young girls everywhere burst into inconsolable tears at the initial disbanding of Take That, are we to infer that mass suicides occured when the original Fab Four parted ways? I hope not. Surely the prospect of fruitful careers from 3/4 of the band's lineup would, ultimately, have served to ease the pain.

Yes, these are beloved bands whose disbandment sparks no end of joyous side-projects and solo careers. For contemporary examples, look to At The Drive-In; who, upon disbanding, became Sparta and The Mars Volta and also paved the way for the impossibly prolific output of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (whose repertoire is now sliding into Category 2). Similarly, I was most distraught when The Beta Band split in 2004. However, I'd've been considerably less so had I known that this would lead to the resurgence of Lone Pigeon, two excellent albums by The Aliens and the ever-exciting solo work of Steve Mason.

See also, The Smiths, out of which came Morrissey's intriguing solo career and a number of interesting Johnny Marr colloborations. You could also, I suppose, lump in Uncle Tupelo, from whom we get Son Volt, Wilco and every other Jeff Tweedy project. Finally, we have Spacemen 3 to thank for Spectrum, Sonic Boom and the almighty Spiritualized.

As far as this model's concerned, though, there always exists the possibility of reformation. In such circumstances, there's the danger of...

6. Post Solo-Work and Side-Projects, the Reformation of Initial Band for Nostalgia, Money etc. - the CASH COW MODEL.

What happened to The Pixies? They used to be cool. When they reformed circa 2004, I, like everyone, was so excited. And they were electric when I saw them. But, recently, Frank Black went on record in saying that they were now only in it for the money. Well, fair enough, a man's got to eat, and you could in some way justify this in saying that the more money they make, the more we get to hear from his solo output and from Kim Deal's The Breeders - in these two pursuits their hearts seem truly to lie. But, c'mon, how is anybody supposed to connect with their live shows now that we know that they're treating it as a day in the office?

Still, could be worse. At least they're not John Lydon.

In this slot I was afraid that the reunions of The Verve and Blur would represent moves into pasteurs greener. However, with The Verve having disappeared again (and with an incoming Richard Ashcroft solo album), I suppose they're safe. As for Blur, their performance of Tender at Glastonbury last year quenches any cynical notions I might ever have harboured. Concurrently, Graham Coxon has his solo career, Damon Albarn just headlined Coachella with Gorillaz, Alex has his cheese, Dave his constituency and clients...

The Velvet Underground briefly flitted with this model in 1993. Now, however, John Cale appears to loathe Lou Reed once more. All, therefore, is right in the universe again.

As for future entries into this model, well - we'll all have to keep our eyes on Suede, won't we? Personally, I'll reserve all criticism until after I've had my spellbound live experience.

7. The Cult Fanbase, the Steady Production of New Material, the Fevrent Live Shows, the Notion that You'll Never Transcend This - the CRUSTY MODEL

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There exists a large number of bands who just don't give up, ever. They might once have been cool, they might once have been huge, but those days are gone - long gone. Nevertheless, they plough on. Either this is because they're those restless creative types and they're simply incapable of doing anything else, or because they feel they owe a debt to whomever still "dares" call themselves a fan.

These bands are demonised by such fickle sources such as NME and Pitchfork, and a lot of them can be found on the Glastonbury line-up year after year. For me, it represents an ideal, of sorts. Imagine being in a state whereby you're readily able to recognise that people really do appreciate your work whilst retaining your right to privacy, your ability to walk down the street unmolested! Also, not featuring in any "tastemaker" publications, you'll be able to safely say that anybody who calls themselves a fan does so out of genuine love for your music rather than out of a fickle notion of "indie cool". In many ways, not being cool is a blessing.

Bands of this ilk seem to exist on three scales: Small, Medium and Large. On the small scale you can find such heroes as British Sea Power, Oceansize, I Am Kloot and The Electric Soft Parade. In the middle you'll find such luminaries as The Waterboys, The Coral, Doves and The Levellers. Finally, in the big league are your Stereophonics, your Snow Patrols, your Simple Minds...

Bands like Athlete, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Starsailor - I really hope that they recognise their fan-bases and their apparent love for making music and plough on. I really, really hope that they do. The notion of still being able to count on them in ten years or so is genuinely endearing.