Slow and British

The year is drawing to a close and, like everybody else for whom music represents an obsession, I'm obsessively cultivating those sacred "year-end" lists.

My "best albums of the year" will be exactly the same as that of pretty much everybody else but with two very important differences:

1. Nobody else liked Zero 7's "Yeah Ghost".
2. Nobody else cares about my opinion. My ultimate list will not be discussed, spat upon, torn to shreds nor used as a basis of what to buy, what to hear. I can but dream. Oh fuck off.

But there are other lists to be compiled before that one. First, here's a list of albums I "dug" that were released elsewhere last year that I only heard this year because I'm slow and British.

1. Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream

 

When this was first released over here, earlier in the year, most everyone seemed to be spouting exactly the same. The "E" word and the "M" word. The "E" being "Eighties", the "M" "MGMT". I took issue with both. Synths and drum machines have been a fixture of pop-music since the 60s. Why, then, are any musicians who peddle a vaguely electronic sound these days instantly painted/tainted with the "eighties" brush? And MGMT? Luke Steele had been doing the whole lysergic psyche thing for years before those Friends of Fridmann, but nobody likened MGMT to The Sleepy Jackson, did they?

But that was all immaterial. For two solid weeks it formed the soundtrack to my dull and drizzly journey to work through dreary Northenden and deadly Wythenshaw. Every day was damp and grey. And yet, every day the sun was shining. This album offered perfect escapism - it rendered those depressing streets positively dazzling and ensured that I was in something vaguely approaching a "good mood" upon arriving at work.

To me, much of it sounds like the soundtrack to a technicolour, hyperkinetic Japanese videogame. Think Game Cube, Dreamcast - think Puyo Puyo, Puzzle Bobble, Outrun or Super Monkey Ball. Listen to those steel drums at the end of Half Mast - that's what I'm thinking. Even has lyrics about hotels in the hills with carousels. Pure, joyous escapism. Never got along with that last track, though.

2. Women - Women

This came out very late last year overseas and seemed to come out here very early this year. As such, I can't help but view it as being somehow removed from time and space. I mean, it's important to not link music to whichever year it happens to be released - and when visiting established albums it's a lot easier - but when you're coming across music as and when it's released, well, it's difficult - for about five years after their release albums feel like little more than products of their time.

So it's unusual for me to find an album released so recently that feels so detached from everything else. The music helps, of course. At any one moment it sounds at once a product of grimy log cabins, of sodden pine forests and of shady crack-alleys. What's a crack-alley? An alley in which crack is taken? What in tarnation? An anus.

Yes, it sounds filthy, dangerous - but also vast, fresh and dripping. The album drips as it sizzles and not one vocal is discernible from the scalding mix. There are, of course, moments of creepy sweetness - but the full descent into feedback noise madness at the end leaves a lasting feeling of disquiet and discomfort. Short, at little over half an hour, but a listening experience somewhat akin to taking that short-cut home through the graveyard at night.

3. School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms

I loved The Secret Machines. I still do. I love The Secret Machines. And yet, I never got around to listening to their third album. Thing is, Benjamin Curtis apparently left as a consequence of finding himself disillusioned with the fact that his band were beginning to dabble in territory too conventionally rocky for him. Citation needed, indeed.

"And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes/I'll see you on the dark side of the moon" - for Mr. Curtis, the dark side of the moon was The School of Seven Bells; an airy, curvy haven with air so crisp it's bitingly cold. I'm not usually a fan of describing music solely in terms of bands of whom I'm reminded. However, when I heard these sweet Mellow Candle harmonies over music as otherworldly as The Cocteau Twins (albeit with less dated production values) - well, all of a sudden that third Secret Machines album didn't seem so appealing. No. I still very much want to hear it. It's just that, I always liked Curtis's work, and if he was finding them too - pedestrian? - and took all his good ideas here - well, the urgency was lost, you know?

Alpinisms. Makes me wish I could ski. Or, at the very least, that I lived in the mountains. A glorious album with which it is by no means a bad thing that it causes me to fall asleep.

NEXT - Three disappointments of 2009. Oh no!

Anti-Romantic Mix-Tape

Alex Gadsby wants it to be understood that whilst this is not a photograph of her, she did take it.

Want to woo a girl, or a man, or other, or someone, or something? Making a mix-tape is a great idea. Or, in this day and age, a burned CDR, or a playlist on Spotify or other - or perhaps a combination of the latter two - an MP3 CDR - placed in a CD player set to "random" and "repeat" - sentiment after sentiment, for eternity.

Of late I've been considering as to what would constitute as the worst woo - what sequence of music would - were you to present it to a potential suitor - send them running, or induce such a state of mortal peril in your target of courtship that a sequence of events is set in place which eventually results in your getting arrested? I've had a very bad week.

This is what I've come up with. Because I haven't got a Spotify account and can't be bothered/am too fearful of arrest to upload MP3s, then I'm afraid that these are songs which you'll have to seek out yourself. Might be a bit of fun - seek them out, burn your own atrocity exhibition. Here goes.



1. Nurse With Wound - Two Shaves and a Shine (Edit)
David Tibet screams of straining to amputate his knees over a demented bass and bouzouki groove. Thrilling stuff, but the idea of a mix-tape is that these artists are saying that which you cannot express. You utlilise the poetry of others to serve your own agenda. If these words constitute as a window to your soul, in the presence of those with whom you want a degree of romantic involvement, you'd be best remaining a closed book. At best you won't get "in", at worst you'll get arrested. Gone for the edit for the sake of pacing and what have you.


2. Grinderman - No Pussy Blues
Nick Cave isn't getting any, so he wrote a litany of peverse sexual frustration which he recites furiously over a caterwaul of screaming feedback. "I thought I'd try another tack, I drank a litre of cognac, I threw her down upon her back, but she just lay up and said that she just didn't want to". It's probably not a good idea to reveal that you'd resort to rape. At least not in the early stages of a relationship.

3. The Cramps - Under The Wires
An ode to the sacred art of non-consensual telephone sex. Even if you're already in the healthiest of relationships, it's best your partner's not aware that you listen to songs with such breathy lyrics as "What colour panties are you wearing/And how long have you been wearing them?" 

4.  Lee "Scratch" Perry - Pum Pum
"Pum Pum" is, of course, a subtle metaphor. Perry is 73. Here you have five minutes of a lecherous old man croaking lustily over filthy dancehall grooves. Anybody you play this to is more or less guaranteed to never, ever want to have sex with you. Ever. Or spend any time in the same room as you.


5. R.E.M - Star Me Kitten (William S. Burroughs version)
Watch their eyes widen in horror as, with no apparent concept of rhythm, the peverse junky barks and slurs his unholy intonation over the most spartan and brooding of backing tracks. Worst case scenario - what if they know (and love) R.E.M, but have no idea at all as to the identity of Mr. Burroughs? What then? They expect joy and relief from their old faithfuls, only to be confronted with this - THIS. Then they ask you who in tarnation is William S. Burroughs. What do you say? A detailed plot synopsis of Naked Lunch has nipped millions of potentially beautiful relationships in the bud.

6. Crass - Asylum
Their eyes widen in horror at the extemely sacreligious bile - potential there to offend even the staunchest of atheists (You lie alone in your cunt fear!) - only to screw themselves shut again at those brutal industrial guitar screams. It grinds to an abrupt halt - they stare at you, lip quivering - "You like this?"

7. Alan Menken - Heaven's Light/Hellfire
A song of two halves. They might appreciate the sweet sentiments of the first half - in which their gaze is likened to heaven's light - but by the time they get to the insane, overblown, orchestral grandiosity of the second half - in which it is hinted that if they don't sleep with you, you will kill them; in a fire - well, you might never see them again.  It will be even harder to explain as to why you own a copy of the soundtrack to Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".

8. Comus - Drip Drip
You might have difficulty justifying even to yourself as to why you have, in your library, an eleven minute folk dirge written on the subject of cutting down the body of a hanged woman and fucking the corpse. Wait until the third date at least before revealing your fondness for Comus.

9. Kevin Ayers - Song From the Bottom of a Well
Disorientating backwards loops, screaming feedback and creepy Mysteron-like vocals chanting grimy rhyming couplets about griminess and - god knows what. Your desperate plea of "But Mike Oldfield's on guitar!" will fall on deaf ears.

10. Fripp & Eno - Swastika Girls
And what better way to end your mix-tape of unfathomable horror than with an approaching twenty minute loop of dissonant tape delay with an uncomfortable title? "Frippertronics!" you'll exclaim with gusto and aplomb. "Groundbreaking, in its day. You know, without this, there'd probably not even be a My Life in the Bush of Ghosts? And I don't even have to begin telling you as to how influential that proved to be." Never leave your room again. There's just no point.


CONCLUSION - There'll always be room for Coldplay.

Insignificant, Inconsequential Quasi-Luddite Nothing

I feel as if it's about time I took a massive step back. In a moment or two there will be a sentence. It's not a sentence I'm looking forward to writing, and, already, I feel downright filthy for having to do so. Here it goes:

Of late, the blogosphere has been set alight -

Oh, I can't. I just can't. "Blogosphere". No. Terrible word. And to "set alight" a community, even a virtual one, is not a metaphor I've ever deployed with pride. I'll try again:

Of late, there has been much debate -

A bit better. The unintentional internal rhyming is a bit clumsy, but it will have to do.

- debate, anyway, concerning illegal filesharing. To cut a long (and immeasurably tedious) story short, Lily Allen has come across as a preachy, self-righteous, greedy and hypocritical corporate whore. On the other side of the debate, though, those who take a sickening degree of pride in describing themselves as pirates have acted with equal disgrace, revelling in her humiliation whilst at the same time attempting to pass off their digital larcenry as a somehow noble act.

The whole debacle is hellishly, chest-implodingly tedious. The NME said absolutely nothing of consequence, their stance acting, for some, as confirmation that they must very much be on the payroll of certain record labels. Their article is pretty pathetic for two reasons. First of all, it's amusing to note how, rather than lambasting Charlie Brooker's opinion on the issue as "wrong", rather they choose to label him as "confused". This is an apparent attempt to not lose face by openly criticsing a commentator whose opinion, to some of their readership, must be infallible. Second of all, it annoys me how horrifying they seem to find the idea that musicians might have to go out and work in order to supplement their creative income, thus raising these individuals to an alarming level of importance, somehow removed from society and, as such, above and beyond anything as mundane as having to work at something. Bad NME. Bad. Why aren't writers treated with the same reverence? Even best-selling authors treat their talent, their calling, as a sideline. It's very rare indeed to find a writer who's "full-time". They all have other pursuits. They have to. Otherwise they'll starve. I like to write, I want to write, and I know that, with such an ambition, I'm perhaps dooming myself to years upon years of frustration in doing something I really don't want to do. If it has to be the same for musicians, so be it.

John Mclure of Reverend and The Makers issued a wake up call, speaking with more sense than has anyone for well over a week now. And well said. Yes, there are more important things to worry about and, yes, file-sharing CAN prove beneficial. There are countless, countless bands of whose very existance I'd be wholly ignorant were it not for file-sharing. Artists whose shows I've subsequently attended, message I've subsequently spread, albums I've subsequently bought - in short, artists to whom I was introduced through illegal means who I have subsequently provided with something approaching an income.

Too much "subsequently" in the above, I think. But, two short points. Is it not the case that major label artists receive something ridiculous like 2p for every album they sell? Do they really miss this meagre income so much, or have they, rather, noticed their incomes swelling as a direct consequence of mass exposure that simply would not have been there previously. Also, I buy a copious amount of CDs and records. I'd say that something like 75% of this I buy second hand. Therefore, even though I'm not downloading these albums illegally, it's still the case that the artists aren't receiving anything at all from my purchases. So, what next? A crack-down on selling music second-hand? Places like eBay and Amazon becoming akin to illicit, under-the-counter black markets?

No, I'm sorry. It's unbelievably tedious and boring and there's nothing I can say that's not been said before thousands and thousands and thousands of times. This post exists because I wish to make a "public announcement" which not only will nobody care about, but also nobody will ever read.

I am taking a huge step back. I am completely and utterly fed up with digital music. I used to justify it as a solution to a meaningless philisophical question which had been plaguing me for years: If attachment to material goods destroys the soul whereas music serves to enrich the soul, what are we to make of such material goods as records, CDs, tapes, stereos, musical instruments? Even though you still needed a laptop or an MP3 player to access it, digital music I used to see as a solution to this "problem" in that - sort of - it made music immaterial. Sort of. You can't really touch data, can you?

But it is exactly this nothingness which has come to so annoy me of late. It's no longer enough for me for my music to simply exist as hard-drive filler. I want the feeling of completeness and aesthetic appeal and, apart from anything else, the dynamic variation that can only ever be achieved through owning music in a recorded form that serves not to fill your hard-drive with clutter, but your house. I look at my ridiculously large CD collection with a combination of humiliation and pride - and I love it.

But that's all immaterial, ultimately. No, what has really come to frustrate me is the way that digital music alters fundamentally my very listening experience. To put on an album with a sound which fills the room with accompanying art work, liner notes, a cup of tea and maybe a book - it's one of my greatest pleasures. It's me surrendering utterly to the fruits of those creative labours and it induces an almost unrivalled sense of wholeness. Maybe it's just me -

But digital music it's all too easy to simply treat as background music - album after album after song after song whizzed through at breakneck speed as you work at your laptop or piped through incompetent headphones as you trudge to and from work; the music reduced to a dreary soundtrack to your toil and forever will it remind you of doing that which you don't really want to do. It's not escape, it's not in any way uplifting - it's simply not good enough.

Then there's the constant amassing of music that, yes, you'd not have even heard of were it not for such blogs as Glowing Raw or Radiobutt, but, downloaded as it is in a frenzy of "It's all here!" - it becomes music that you'll either never get round to hearing or, worse, you'll feel somehow obliged into giving a listen and will approach it in not at all an acceptable frame of mind which, although ostensibly you're hearing this music, serves to render as pointless any such obscure artistic endeavours. It's all very well for an artist to have their music heard, but I'm sure they'd prefer it if people were listening rather than hearing. With digital music, I find it's all too easy to stop listening and simply allow yourself to hear. Not good enough.

Finally, I am sick to death of Last.fm. For far too long now I have let this odious little application all but drive the manner in which I listen to music. I can see the benefit of it, certainly - how it aids in introducing you to music similar to that which you like (based upon that to which you listen, of course). But it's never a good idea for people who have a history of gaming to utilise such plug-ins. The inexplicable joy of performing such actions in order to allow for a number to increase simply cannot be applied to music. I recently realised, to my horror, that subconsciously of course I was simply listening to countless hours of music with the specific intention of building up a playcount. And to what end? Nothing - I've never, ever, ever cared about what people think of me (based upon the music I like) - so it's not even like I'm attempting to build up a profile with the desired effect of making people awestruck at my ice-cold taste. Just look at it! Look at how often I listen to Athlete and The Waterboys and tell me I'm cool. Impossible. Again I realised that I was listening to music for all the wrong reasons and had been doing so ever since I went digital.

Well, it has to stop. I've enough to be getting on with as it is - an immense backlog of downloads to plough through - and it is that, not any degree of shame induced by Lily Allen, which has made me decide to cease and desist in the downloading. If it means that I'm exposed to less than before then so be it. I'd be much, much happier devoting hours to one artist (or album) than in simply hearing a larger slice of all that is out there. And there really is so, so much out there.

So does this mean that I will stop using Windows Media Player, my MP3 player and Last.fm? Absolutely not. Just not like I used to. Does it mean I'll stop downloading music completely? Probably not. Will this make any difference at all to the world and, more importantly, does anybody care? Not at all. Not at all. Not even slightly.

Here I Show My Age

 "Rock is dead! Long live rock!"

"This is the dawning of the age of electro!"

So was proclaimed - I say proclaimed, but, in actuality, I'm paraphrasing - it was the 9th September, 2009, and I was up early, so I watched GMTV. On that day the entire Beatles back catalogue was re-released with super-definitive-ultra-plus-fidelity and Sound (TM) technology for the first time ever, at 9.09AM, on 09/09/09 - nines to the left, nines to the right, number nine, number nine, number nine - you can sort of see what they were trying to do.

Anyhow, they got a man on - on GMTV - to talk about The Beatles. I don't know who he is. But he looked wizened and sagacious, Important, like he Knew What He Was Talking About. The first thing he did was to proclaim that The Age Of Rock is Over. For evidence, he looked to the charts, said there's a lot of stuff like Dizzee Rascal, Calvin Harris, Dizzee Rascal feat. Calvin Harris etc. The popularity of this stuff is evidence enough to suggest that we're living in The Age of Electro.

So I listened to the Top 40, twice! And you know, that man, that WIZARD, he's absolutely right - there is finally a sound - in future years I get the impression that people will be able to date music - early noughties! - by its sound alone.You can do the same with 60s music (it sounds, variously, like syrup, like dust, like acid, like wood), with 70s music (it tastes like tea, sherbert or apples), with the music of the 80s (people go mad for synths and drum machines, forget about the importance of basslines and, thanks to Peter Gabriel's gated reverb [citation needed], all drums sounded as if they'd been recorded in a soulless cathedral) and, finally, with 90s music (pro-tools et al entailed that the possibilities were endless, but everything sounded quite muted, tinny and identical).

ASIDE - is there such a thing as blogging awards? If there is, I think that the above should win the award for most convoluted and labyrinthine sentence. At the very least, it should be nominated.

So, what does the music of the noughties sound like? The charts for some time have been simmering in ultra-crisp r'n'b - the clipped, syncopated production techniques of the likes of Dr. Dre and Timbaland - and such exotic influences as Jamaican Dancehall, Reggaeton and, to a lesser extent, Afro-Beat. This fascinating stew has been allowed to brew for years and now - well, it's not so much exploded, so to speak, but I've not been listening for a while. I've just dipped back in, for the first time in years, and now it's everywhere - the sound of NOW - which, over the past year or so, seems to have looked back to the 80s, though I really don't think that the dominance of synths makes for a particularly "80s" sound. They've always been used, before and since - they just seem to be closer to the front these days.

It's highly rhythmic, the bass is massive - verily, one can "shake ones booty" (I think that's what they say). And, best of all, it doesn't sound particularly processed or contrived. Of course, so crisp and PERFECT are some of those rhythms that a lot of it doesn't sound particularly soulful, either. Guess you can't have everything. Yep, I do think that future generations will hear these complex rhythms, deep low-end sounds, immense synth-chords and dehumanised vocals and they'll say, they'll say - "ROBOT SEX, I do declare that this piece was most certainly released sometime between 2004 and 2014" (for it will hang around for a while, of course it will, to be replaced by I cannot wait to hear).

One thing, though, never has changed and never will change. It is no gross generalisation to say that, for as long as there's been a chart, there have been empty, vaccuous, meaningless lyrics. It's either an agreement or an understanding or whatever -and, somewhere, it most probably is WRITTEN - that so long as people can dance to it, so long as it sticks in their heads, so long as people can sing along - then it doesn't matter IN THE SLIGHTEST as to what exactly is sung.

And that's fine. Not everything needs to speak to me about my life. It's not even the case that everything should at least say something about a life to which I could never hope to relate. Not everything needs to comment on society, and not everything needs to suggest that there's perhaps more to life than this. We have our realism, we have our escapism - our poetry and our rhetoric, our jingoism and whatever - and then, left over, on the side - is everything else - just words, with no meaning or a vague meaning, and that's fine! It is! Honestly! It's always been the case, and, yeah, it always will be, so there's no point at all in complaining.

It's just that, in my skimming of the charts, the sheer inanity of some of the twitterings that dared to identify themselves as "lyrics" - well, they really did irritate. Some examples:

1. Lily Allen - 22

This one's a particular cause for irritation because it seems to be pretending that it's "about" something:

When she was 22 the future looked bright
But she's nearly 30 now and she's out every night
I see that look in her face she's got that look in her eye
She's thinking how did I get here and wondering why

Aha, see, it's about a Bridget Jones sort of figure, right? A young woman who's getting a bit older and isn't quite sure as to where her life's going. Ok. That's - that's been said before, but ok. The thing is, Lily's message - does she have a message? It's a bit confused.

It's sad but it's true how society says
Her life is already over
There's nothing to do and there's nothing to say
Til the man of her dreams comes along picks her up and puts her over his shoulder
It seems so unlikely in this day and age

See, Helen Fielding Ms. Allen ain't. No, this isn't a wry (or scathing) comment upon the pressures that society puts upon women to get careers and boyfriends. Nothing like that, Lily's saying that, yeah, it might be "sad", but it's "true"! This woman's life IS over! She's nearly 30 and she's feeling vaguely lost and...well, her life's over, basically. Does Lily offer any hope for redemption? Any sort of comment upon this plight which must be prevalent in women of a certain age? Does she offer any words of consolation, any alternative, or anything? No. Nothing. She really does have "nothing to say". Bad lyrics are especially bad when they THINK that they have meaning. But this - this is empty. It's of no consequence at all, completely meaningless and, apart from anything else, it's remarkably boring. That chorus sounds more like a bridge. I was expecting for something amazing to happen, but nothing - it just went back into the verse again, saying nothing again - a nothing song that does nothing about a depressing subject - a terrible song, then.

2. Lady GaGa - Love Game

Unlike Lily Allen, this one certainly SOUNDS alright, but that opening gambit:

I wanna kiss you

But if I do I might miss you, babe

What in god's name does that even mean? The chorus I can forgive - all those references to "sick" beats and "disco sticks" on which she wants to take a ride - it's about listening to music and wanting to have sex, right? But that opening line - that has nothing to do with anything. A desperate rhyming scheme which sounds vaguely - romantic? Well, it certainly threw me. I just couldn't enjoy it from that point.

3. Pitbull - I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)

These're the absolute pits of meaningless contemporary lyrics. I'm not even going to bother attempting to decipher what the hell they were trying to say in such blurtings as:

Mami got an ass like a donkey, with a monkey,
look like King Kong, welcome to the crib,
real fast what it is,
with a woman down ya shit
dont play games,
they up the chain, and they let her do

everythang and anythang hit tha thang

I think, like Richard Pryor, he must have grown up in a brothel with his mother. In the 80s. Or something.

Oh my god I'm getting old.

Massive Cock

Matthew Street Music Festival 2009

 

 The Cocanuts.

Far too many tribute acts, most of which are playing Beatles songs, nothing else. Multiple stages, but hardly anything to see. For this reason, we purposefully avoided day one of The Matthew Street Festival. Day two at least had the "new bands" stage. Located just around the corner from Moorfields Station on Tithebarn Street, the idea was that the talents of Merseyside, yesterday and today, would all be showcased on this one stage; it being, as a result, the only "main" stage to feature any original music. Walk around the rest of the city and you're in tribute limbo, not a good place to be. 

The Sunday lineup was comprised of bands from the first wave of Mersey Beat. Monday, the day we attended, was supposed to feature younger, more contemporary bands. That said, a lot of the people onstage today appeared to be fat, balding - mid to late forties - which implied that the bands of yesterday/yesteryear must have been made up of a collection of crumbling semi-fossilised skeletal zombies animated only by electrical discharges sent down the animatronic wires that have long since replaced their veins. Dodged a bullet there, then. Toilet breaks mid-set.

We arrived comparatively early in order that we could catch Emily & The Faves. Ryan, my brother and travelling companion, frequents a cafe at which Emily herself works. Or frequents, I can't remember which. We were promised some stoned, cosmic sounds in the vein of Bongwater or Galaxie 500, but instead we were treated to half an hour or so of supremely competent trebly guitar pop which brought to my mind Sleeper. Sleeper! I then remembered that, when in town the other day with significantly less money I had gazed longingly at a copy of their "It Girl" album in a nearby Cex. A pilgrimage was duly made in that direction, and it was about this point that the streets began to fill. 

Most people were, it seemed, only there in order that they could exploit the relaxed street-drinking laws. Essentially, in specially designated areas, it was legal to drink as much as you wanted, but only before 18.00. This most people ignored: heavy drinking was taking place everywhere. It was common to see men and women of varying ages and tracksuit hues swaggering down the street clutching a grubby carrier bag full of booze - not so much making merry as steadfastly making it their mission to get as inebriated as they possibly could in as short a space of time as possible. Just like any other day in any other city anywhere, then. But this time it was slightly different. Like mufty day in school - when you were allowed to wear your own clothes - that people were allowed to drink in the street - in full view of the police! - leant a degree of novelty to the binging. I saw a woman stride with pride into the Cex to which I was making a bee-line - pint in hand, she proceeded to attempt to sell a battered little black box. They weren't having it. What was it? Unsellable, in any case. She proceeded to argue, loudly, doing that horrible aggressive pointing thing which seems to accompany all drunken conversations - friendly or hostile - in the north. And there was me queueing some five or six people behind her calmly clutching my Sleeper album. She wouldn't budge, so my pilgrimage was abandoned. It'll be cheaper online, anyway.

We drifted back towards the "new bands" stage in order to see The Amnesiacs. We knew absolutely nothing about this band, but we were keen to give them a go. I thought that with a name like that they could have been demonstrating a deep-seated admiration for the jazziest of Radiohead albums which would inevitably have seeped into their music. I was wrong. Very, very wrong. They were introduced as a "ska band", then came onstage and in a chirpy scouse PA twang only previously heard at pantomines, proceeded to introduce themselves as a "ska band", before going on to play some "ska music". This Ryan identified as "middle ska". "Early ska" is the label he gives to the originators, "late ska" to sickening atrocities such as Save Ferris, and in between, "middle ska", the likes of Madness, The Specials and, apparently, The Amnesiacs. It being Liverpool, they appeared to be related to most of the crowd. Their music was fast, loud and - in that afternoon warmth with the sun struggling to peek through the overcast sky, it was hard not to smile at their bouncy grooves and social commentary. They were yelping about poverty, about how one wastes their life at work - wonder stuff! Then they introduced a song by saying that there's a global conspiracy which everybody ignores, distracted as they are by modern trivia. Oh, please don't let this be about Judaism. I don't think it was. They spoke out against how lousy it was to have so many tribute acts on the bill, so kudos to them there, anyway. 

Went for a wander after that. We gazed at the Mersey for a while, attracted by a boat which seemed to get smaller the closer you got. Next, we ploughed our way Mt. Pleasentward, through the lairy crowds and stopping off to look in a few charity shops for some Flaubert. It became uncomfortably warm, so it was a relief to arrive at St. Luke's, the bombed out church atop Bold Street. This is where we should have headed from the start. Called The Matthew Street Fringe (what else?) it was, supposedly, the alternative to the Beatles-obsessed throngs below. And it was absolutely wonderful.

Within St. Luke's we at first enjoyed the hypnotic polyrhythmic delights of Global Pulse. Three Liverpudlian drummers - their leader wearing a big red hat to contain his dreadlocks - but their sound was so vibrant and life-affirming that it was hard to believe that it was conceived and played by denizens of so bleak and insular a city. There in the empty shell of the ex-church, surrounded by wildflowers and interesting photography - this music which seemed to look beyond a specific, stifling time and place was exactly what I needed at that point. 

Having left the stage, local rapper/poet Loki took to the stage to preach, in rhyme, to a beat - about his need to transcend his Liverpool existence ("it's MANDATORY!"). Here we had some genuine ambition. More so than the "new bands" downtown, this actually felt like the contemporary music of Liverpool. It felt forward thinking, relevant - and it was supremely refreshing to hear from somebody else who felt the need to escape from this swaddle of a city. 

Next came a quartet called Wrecked Career. Apparently they came together less than a week ago, so it's understandable that they've not yet any kind of online presence. For less than a week of togetherness, already they boast an impressively tight sound, with soulful vocals undulating over addictive beat theremin loops. By this point the wind had picked up and people had begun to dance. In those apocalyptic surroundings with that dark, ashen sky - the wind interfering with the sound quality - things began to feel somewhat tribal. I felt a warmth - it was CREATIVITY! Unfortunately, the actual temperature itself was low. As warm as I might have been feeling inside and as much as I would have liked to have stayed and saw through Wrecked Career's set, it was too chilly, we had to leave.

I was up for heading towards Bumper - a nearby bar where entry was free and where bands such as Peter and The Wolf were apparently playing all day. It would have been warm and comfortable, but there was a further band on the "new stage" of which Ryan had heard great things, so we descended once again into orange hell. By now the crowds were pulsating and the alcohol had kicked in. There was a certain tension in the air which I just couldn't ignore. Where it came from, I don't know. It struck me as the exact opposite of the inclusive party atmosphere of St. Luke's. This one felt less tribal, more primal - hostile, exclusive, cold, cruel. 

We arrived at the stage just in time to see The Elementals kick off their set. Again, they are unfortunately lacking in any web presence, but for these guys the crowd was surging. There must have been about a dozen musicians onstage - four or five rappers, a small horn section, a drummer, a DJ, three guitarists, bass - an extremely harsh and visceral sound which seemed to tear through the air and reminded me for the second time that day that this city can skank. And skank they did. The atmosphere was a dark party - before me, to the whoops and applause of the circle which immediately surrounded him, a young boy began to breakdance. The main body of the crowd was throbbing with energy, the police nearby looked grumpy, wary - as if hoping against hope that things wouldn't turn ugly.

For a while it felt great to be part of something so apparently vital and celebratory. However, presently a group of glittery sailors in wigs and hot-pants - part of a gay cabaret act from a nearby stage - meandered through the crowd. Some people boo'd them. Some turned from the stage and shouted at them, pointing. Their voices slurred unrecognisable by alcohol, no sense could be found in their shouts. However, the ugliness of their expressions, the screwed-up redness of their faces and the violence of their hand movements made it clear that these flamboyant sailors simply weren't welcome here. Indeed, how dare they be so different, so gay?! Of course, as homosexuals they presented a direct threat to the manliness of these feral idiots, so they simply had to scream their disdain. Would it have turned ugly had the police not been there? I don't like to think. From that point on, I lost the ability to view the party atmosphere positively. I was reminded that such collective energy could, very easily, be directed with destructive hatred against anybody who doesn't fit in. As I feel like an outsider at the best of times in this city, I suddenly felt very vulnerable indeed.

The final band of the day - the headliners, as it were - were The Cocabelles. Heavily influenced by the vocal girl groups of the 40s, 50s and 60s, they'd be a museum piece were they not so young, with two of the three girls being but 21. Dance moves and all - with sweet, close harmonies, a tight, swinging backing band, the guitarist of which sported a most impressive moustache - they were bright, colourful, energetic and very, very tedious and dull. That sort of music simply does nothing for me. The more faithful the pastiche, the more depressed it makes me feel. Also, there and then the sky blackened completely and opened up - it began to rain very hard indeed. I looked around at the miserable, drunken faces, the horrible grey office blocks bearing down around us - the barriers, the security cameras, the police - it hit me, I felt cold, wet, trapped and the chirpy sounds onstage with mocking cruelty simply compounded the misery - there and then I had to leave. Luckily they were only onstage for twenty-five minutes.

The Matthew Street Festival, then, I believe forces this grey city into a far more faithful nutshell than did an entire year of "Capital of Culture" events and plaudits. The majority of the city is cold, hostile, lairy, brutal, cruel, insular, inbred and absolutely obsessed with itself - with its position in the world, in Britain, with its past, with The Beatles and with pride. However, look hard enough and you'll find pockets of wondrous warmth and creativity - with people who'll smile with you, shake your hand, look out for you and just generally make you feel welcome. The difference seems to be that people in the latter camp know that Liverpool - as great a place as it might be, certainly is not the world.

No Laughing Matter

 

R.I.P? 

I'm on my best behaviour, trying to consider how upset and annoyed I'd get were people to dare rejoice at the news that a band close to my heart were to split. This news must be devastating for quite a few people. Cheer up! Might not happen. I'm just enjoying a disgusting degree of poetic justice having been so offended by this earlier.