January 1998 - Sinister - missprint.org

RE: Sinister: Pat Sharpe
by Chris Leonard 16 Jan '98

16 Jan '98

Dammit. That last one wasn't ready to get send, my finger slipped. Ignore it ok. >---------- >From: Chris Leonard >Sent: 16 January 1998 13:53 >To: 'Sinister'; 'Keith Watson' >Subject: RE: Sinister: Pat Sharpe > > > > >>Mmm...... I always thought a mullet was just the opposite - long at the >front >>and on top, but short at the back - the kind of thing that was popular with >the >>new romantics. There was a lot of talk of mullets in the music press a >year >>or two back, when that awful band Tiger were getting press, as apparently >>they sported mullets. They certainly didn't have the Michael Bolton look. >> >>I'm confused > >I'm lonely. Is it possible there are regional variations on the mullet >style. Sounds like the reverse mullet to me. It's a brilliant word that, >mullet. Mullet. Mullet. As for the music press I can't really comment >because I don't like music and I can't read. >It's officially the worst haircut in the history of hairdressing. > > I had this horrible thought there imagining David "The Dame", "The Thin >White Duke" Bowie sporting one just after his taste glands got removed in >1983, but luckily, he didn't - I imagine that was more of a fluke than by >design. > >Well, it could be argued that the Ziggy/Aladdin Sane hairstyles were mini >mullets, with extra spike. Enough of this. > >If you are reading this carefully > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Sinister: Creme Anglaise
by Anne 16 Jan '98

16 Jan '98

>Hi! >> I lost the "Sinister mail" from the Guy/Girl (can't remember ) who runs Creme Anglaise.>> How can i get a copy ? >> Please..... send me a mail. >> Her name is Anne and her address is aroels(a)epf.fr ... but she must have already read your message on the list. And by the way there is a B&S >interview in this issue of Creme Anglaise! (and we all were in Manchester, you must >have met us / her) >Stéphane >Anne, je te fais de la pub! Ca vaut bien une bière au Popin, non? See you!!! Hi everybody, Yes this is me, Anne from France (plus some of my friends) doing this fanzine. So... what could I say about it...? It's called CREME ANGLAISE, it's issue 4, and features: exceptional guests, BELLE & SEBASTIAN ! (interview in Oxford) Also in this issue, lots of other interviews: STEREOLAB, THE TINDERSTICKS, JJ JOHANSON, EELS, PLACEBO, CORNERSHOP, FUCK, THE DELGADOS, THE PASTELS, and DIE STERNE... plus more reviews, news, singles, albums, gigs: Mouse On Mars, Broadcast, OP8, St Malo festival 97, Bjork secret gig in Paris, Magoo, and all the usual stuff, ideas, fun! Elle est pas belle la vie?! You can get a copy from Tower Records Picadilly Circus (London) Rough Trade and Selectadisc (unles they ran out of copies, I must check) or order it from... °°°° France °°°° Creme Anglaise, 13 rue Rougemont, F-75009 Paris (aroel(a)epf.fr) °°°° UK °°°° Creme Anglaise, 36A Halliford Str. London N13EL (cheques payable to A. Roels) °°°° Germany °°°° Creme Anglaise, c/o Petra Wersch,Breyeller Str.22 D-41334 Nettetal RSBWE(a)t-online.de) And this costs FF20 / 2 pounds / DM6 (80 A5 pages in English) For outside Europe, fet in touch with Matt... Creme Anglaise, c/o Matt Neimark, 341 Summer St. Sommerville MA 02144, USA (mattn(a)neurometrix.com) OK, that's it for now! Au revoir, mes amis! Anne. PS: merci pour la pub Stephane! Oui, ca faut peut-etre une pub au POPin... on verra, on verra... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: Sinister: Pat Sharpe
by Chris Leonard 16 Jan '98

16 Jan '98

> > >>Mmm...... I always thought a mullet was just the opposite - long at the >front >>and on top, but short at the back - the kind of thing that was popular with >the >>new romantics. There was a lot of talk of mullets in the music press a >year >>or two back, when that awful band Tiger were getting press, as apparently >>they sported mullets. They certainly didn't have the Michael Bolton look. >> >>I'm confused I'm lonely. Is it possible there are regional variations on the mullet style. Sounds like the reverse mullet to me. It's a brilliant word that, mullet. Mullet. Mullet. As for the music press I can't really >comment because I don't like music and I can't read. >It's officially the worst haircut in the history of hairdressing. > I had this horrible thought there imagining David "The Dame", "The Thin >White Duke" Bowie sporting one just after his taste glands got removed in >1983, but luckily, he didn't - I imagine that was more of a fluke than by >design. > Well, it could be argued that the Ziggy/Aladdin Sane hairstyles were >mini mullets, with extra spike. Enough of this. If you are reading this carefully ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: re: Pastels this sat...
by Andrew.Dean＠BULL.NET 16 Jan '98

16 Jan '98

Sinister: Pastels this sat... Seymour Stein (pym0491b(a)westminster.org.uk) Fri, 16 Jan 1998 12:25:55 +0000 >Considering how many pastels fans there are her...probably >loads, are any listees planning to go to the Garage this >Saturday? >xx will as it happens, will (and anyone else who's popping along), i've made plans to meet up with friends at the wig and something just up the road from the garage (other side of the street, further away from the tube station) before the gig so if you're in there from about 7 onwards i'll be the one looking like this: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister/people/koogy.gif (i'm the one on the right!). so say hello and i'll probably mumble something in return... um, just trying to think what to wear so you'll recognise me... nope, no idea, sorry. um, my friends are going to go to the gig upstairs and i was thinking of going to the pastels but leaving before they played (sacrilege, i know, but they were kinda bad in new york last time, victims of the p.a. i think, and i live way out of london so...) but this doesn't matter... hey hey, someone bought up the kitchen the other day, i've been meaning to ask anybody if they'd seen it - just read the book over summer and was kinda struck by it all. all kinda alien to me being not japanese and not female and all but, well, just plain nice. and the comemrcial as well, someone mentioned, the levis white tab jeans commercial with the herse. cool. so cool that i went and tried a pair on (trousers were so much better in the 60s, i see cliff richards on that bus and...). button fly though. 8( oh, and they mentioned it was the lilys providing the music. well, my american, er, friend who's good at these things told me she thought it was the apples in stereo so... today's guardian article is well informed and reads well. thanks for posting that noname@noemail (nick!), saved me doing it. 8) andy ok, time to come clean, the picture is about 7 years old now... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Sinister: Pastels in Leeds... were you there?
by Keith Watson 16 Jan '98

16 Jan '98

>They _were_ top. I'd never heard Truck Train Tractor before, but thought it >was great. Why did so many people leave after the support bands, though... >had they dragged all their mates along or something? ;-) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Sinister: Pastels in Leeds... were you there?
by iles＠boreas.leeds.icnet.uk 16 Jan '98

16 Jan '98

>Mark wrote > >> Hey, I was there last night. You weren't the one wearing >the Belle and >> Sebastian T-shirt and a big coat that looked like it was made of dalmations >> were you? Or could it be someone else on the list... > >Hell, no, that wisnae me, but that coat was something else, no? He >must have been about forty, and all his eyeshadow was running. I was >the little guy sat on the steps with the pullover and Nike runners, >taking pictures at the end. I'm afraid I didn't see you, then. He didn't look all that old to me in the dim light in the place, but I noticed he was carrying a tiny rucksack over his arm like a handbag and danced like a maniac to Formula One. Anyone want to own up... >They were fantastic, weren't they? Can't believe they played 'Truck >Train Tractor'. I almost cried when they covered 'Starry Eyed'. They _were_ top. I'd never heard Truck Train Tractor before, but thought it was great. Why did so many people leave after the support bands, though... had they dragged all their mates along or something? >Anyway, West Yorks. listees, where do you all drink? We haunt the >Hyde Park Social, and Joseph's Well. Any ideas for pop-quiz-style >outings or evening sojourns for us stuck up here, hundred's of miles >from the Good Mixer? I don't know of anywhere round here that organises a pop quiz. Shame... I'd be up for it. What happened to the NME pop quiz that travelled round the universities a couple of years ago - did they not bother again? I mainly drink near where I live - The Fenton - also now and again The Dry Dock, the Old Bar (in the union) and the Firkin (because it's better than the Old Bar). Mark ___________________________________________________________________________ Mark Iles, Tel: +44 (0113) 2065042 Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Fax: +44 (0113) 2340183 Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory, Ashley Wing, Email: iles(a)boreas.leeds.icnet.uk St James's University Hospital, Beckett Street, Leeds, LS9 7TF U.K. ____________________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: Pastels in Leeds... were you there?
by iles＠boreas.leeds.icnet.uk 16 Jan '98

16 Jan '98

>Oh, and can anybody help me out? Suggestions for things to ask Steven >Pastel tonite, when I've to interview him for the paper, would be >much appreciated, so's I don't just blurt out crap like "Gee whizz, >you know Steve malkmus, wow". Hey, I was there last night. You weren't the one wearing the Belle and Sebastian T-shirt and a big coat that looked like it was made of dalmations were you? Or could it be someone else on the list... Mark ___________________________________________________________________________ Mark Iles, Tel: +44 (0113) 2065042 Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Fax: +44 (0113) 2340183 Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory, Ashley Wing, Email: iles(a)boreas.leeds.icnet.uk St James's University Hospital, Beckett Street, Leeds, LS9 7TF U.K. ____________________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: Pat Sharpe
by Keith Watson 16 Jan '98

16 Jan '98

>Mmm...... I always thought a mullet was just the opposite - long at the front >and on top, but short at the back - the kind of thing that was popular with the >new romantics. There was a lot of talk of mullets in the music press a year >or two back, when that awful band Tiger were getting press, as apparently >they sported mullets. They certainly didn't have the Michael Bolton look. > >I'm confused Nah, a mullet's definitely the long at back short at sides and on top look sported by cheesy 80's people (was going to say scousers, but removed for fear of offence). As sported by such luminaries as Limahl (an anagram of "Hamill", which is his surname Look In fans) and Paul McCartney, even now! It's officially the worst haircut in the history of hairdressing. I had this horrible thought there imagining David "The Dame", "The Thin White Duke" Bowie sporting one just after his taste glands got removed in 1983, but luckily, he didn't - I imagine that was more of a fluke than by design. Keith. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: Re:Sessions DownLow
by mayfly the fly 16 Jan '98

16 Jan '98

I spoke with someone at the soon to be announced US label and the band will be on the show soon, probably later this month. There was a bit of a tie up because the show was recorded such a long time ago and is just airing now, but it's worked out, and it doesn't seem like a big deal. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: Guardian article - (warning: LONG!)
by Nick Dastoor/BSHO/GB 16 Jan '98

16 Jan '98

I don't know if this is a good idea and I haven't even read it all but perhaps some of you might like to see this article from today's Guardian on the scene in Glasgow, "Britain's undisputable second musical city" (I presume he means London is the first - why?). More mentions of the wispy, delicate and 'unbelievably shy' Belle and Sebastian than you could shake a small bus at, but no photo (ha!). Nick S. Dastoor nick_dastoor.bsho(a)notes.compuserve.com SCOTTISH BANDS - WEST END PEARLS. By Tom Cox. Exit Central Station, ride the tube four stops anti-clockwise from Buchanan Street, get off at Hillhead, and you're there: at the hub of Scotland's leading cultural outpost, the midstream of a humble but broad-minded metropolis with a fast-accelerating civic pride. After a regional survey, last week's Big Issue magazine voted Glasgow Britain's coolest city, decreeing it was spontaneous, classless, young and vibrant, with a youth population who wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world. Owing largely to Trainspotting and the 1996 Turner Prize, it's been propitious to be Scottish for some time now. Being Glaswegian, the survey proves, is better still. Canvassing Glasgow's thriving musical community, I arrive at even more conclusive results. When interrogated, nine out of 10 Glasgow musicians stay inexorably loyal to their home city - and opine that Glaswegian pop music is currently at its bonniest ever. This is more than just hackneyed home-town pride. Look at the evidence. Recently, Glasgow has stepped forward as Britain's undisputable second musical city, leaving competitors Manchester and Liverpool in a cloud of sub-Oasis dust. Avant-garde overlord John Peel claims to have aired more records from Glasgow in the last 12 months than at any other time during his four-decade career. Moody sods Arab Strap soundtrack the Guinness advert. The unbelievably shy and delicate Belle And Sebastian get closer to a Top Of The Pops outing with each single. Even Spice Girl Mel C has been seen out watching the really quite ramshackle Urusei Yatsura. After a few years being buffeted around half-invented weekly music press scenes, Glasgow is set to transcend previous tags - lo-fi retro - though sheer eclecticism. In the first half of 1998, expect new albums from Belle And Sebastian, Superstar, Urusei Yatsura, The Delgados, Adventures In Stereo, Arab Strap, The Pastels, The Leopards, Future Pilot AKA, 18 Wheeler and Mogwai. This is a frequently terrific bunch, who - due to the once-unimaginable success of Belle And Sebastian and Teenage Fanclub, and the groundwork of deviants like Orange Juice and The Pastels - can now feel nowhere near as marginalised as they used to. Back in the eighties, Glasgow rock meant Simple Minds and Wet Wet Wet: slick, bloated, arena-ready ego-massaging which said little about its place of origin, let alone the lives of its fans. Anything else was strictly peripheral. `We felt quite disenfranchised by the grandiose sound in the eighties,' remembers Stephen McRobbie from The Pastels, who along with the Jesus And Mary Chain, Primal Scream and The Vaselines, formed an original kicking-against-the-pricks guild in reaction to corporate misery. `We'd all had similar experiences - there was nowhere good to play in Glasgow and a lack of communication.' The difference now, with the stadium pomposity gone, is that the self-sufficient Glasgow band is a realistic commercial prospect - still able to operate on its own terms, but no longer creatively isolated, despite being 500 miles away from music biz central. A proliferation of record labels, clubs and bands ensures constant moral support, without a niggling media spotlight. The effect is such that a band like Belle And Sebastian can earn universal praise and top 40 success with minimal nationwide gigs and still fewer interviews. Their decision is simple: `When it comes to chosing between a gig in London and playing in front of all our friends, we'll go for the friends every time,' explains Sarah Martin, the group's violinist. Martin, a Mancunian who relocated to Glasgow in the early nineties, finds the underworld fellowship of the city both spooky and alluring. `It seems really incestuous in a way - once you're in a band, you end up drinking with all the other bands. Everyone's sensible here, though. No matter how successful people are, you still see them going down to The 13th Note to check out the latest group.' Delgados vocalist Emma Pollock agrees: `Because of what we do, we can just go out and have a party. Nobody's organised it, but you can't turn around without seeing someone you know. Plus, there's no pressure to compliment someone's band just because you're friends with them.' The 13th Note is the premier night-time rendezvous for Glaswegian subculture, a venue with a free plug-in policy, ensuring that fledgling local outfits can always get a gig mere days after first picking up a Rickenbacker. Step from Hillhead tube station into the West End and you're greeted by the other meeting places: the daytime ones. Immediately t o your right is Jon Smith's, the book and record shop where Stephen from The Pastels will sell you the esoterica of your choice. Across the road is a succession of cosmopolitan nosheries. Around the corner, you'll find bohemian backstreet cafes likely to be thronged with at least a million members of Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai or The Delgados at any one time. Glasgow may still be a mean city, and parts of it may look like eastern Europe with better shops, but this is different - safe, cultured and lively. Eight years ago Glasgow was designated European City Of Culture by the European Community. It's difficult to gauge the benefit this had on underground music, but there's a definite residual optimism. Most of 1998's rock population are industrial suburbanites who've been magnetised to the centre by its increasingly ebullient nature. The Pastels' Stephen McRobbie was one of the first. `The West End can be quite deceptive,' he points out. `Most of us actually grew up close to poverty-stricken areas. Our parents were only quite poor but our grandparents were really, really poor.' `Traditionally Edinburgh's slummy, ill-educated in-law, Glasgow is turning the tables, attracting a different kind of person,' reckons Gerry Love, who, like the rest of Teenage Fanclub, hails from the Lanarkshire no-man's land a dozen miles outside the city. `When I was growing up, the whole west of Scotland was like a wasteland and Glasgow was a demolition zone - like That Sinking Feeling, the Bill Forsyth movie. It's become more sophisticated since I moved here.' The archetypal minor Glaswegian rock star is often ascribed an innocuous persona in the music press - sleepy Stephen Pastel, cuddly Joe Superstar, cheeky Gerry Fanclub. Apart from being somewhat patronising, this undermines an inherent grittiness in their backgrounds. Would a bunch of grinning nice-but-dims have a discography as soaringly memorable as Teenage Fanclub's? I think not. There's a personable nature here, but there's also a severe, single-minded one. Love tells me: `There's something bolshy and defiant about Glasgow bands. It's in our genes.' McRobbie defines it as a `swagger bereft of an over-egged rock-star arrogance' - something, as someone who's overseen Scottish independent music since the early eighties, he's recognised in all great Glasgow rock, from The Jesus And Mary Chain to Belle And Sebastian. What other factors are characteristic of the Glasgow band? Patience, for starters. Of the truly special Glaswegian works awaiting release in 1998, the majority come from songwriters who've quietly honed their pop chops over a number of years. Belle And Sebastian's introverted Stuart Murdoch was a familiar nomadic presence around Glasgow for years, DJ-ing in local clubs and distributing his home-recorded tapes of wispy, underdeveloped compositions inspired by the city's bus routes. Adventures In Stereo's fuzzy, Dusty Springfield-echoing mini-symphonies are textured by ex-Primal Scream axeman Jim Beattie. The emotionally intense, soulful Superstar are the brainchild of long-time Teenage Fanclub acolyte Joe MacAlinden, who, in an inferior incarnation, released an album through Creation Records in 1992. `I think what's emerged is a dedication to the art of making music, the same approach of film directors who maintain a high standard for 40 years,' as McRobbie sums it all up. Without a `Conquer the world, quick!' manifesto, the typical Glasgow band reverses every rock'n'roll cliche in existence. `Live fast, die young' becomes `Nae hurry, drink lots of tea'. `You've got a lifetime to write your first album and a year to write your second' becomes `We still need time to develop as a band'. `We're genius, us, our kid' becomes `Give us 10 years and we might be quite good'. With this `Who, us?' demeanour disguising a quiet determination, the Glasgow attitude nestles light-years from its mouthy counterpart south of the border. `There was a nationalism in Britpop that you wouldn't get here. Because we live in a smaller country, we tend to think more internationally,' McRobbie points out. Perhaps this is why the west coast of Scotland in 1998 bears comparison to the west coast of America in 1968. From the city's San Francisco district - a cross-hatched hillside street plan similar to the one which dominates Frisco's centre - to the unprompted Glaswegian support of mavericks like Kurt Cobain, Brian Wilson and Big Star's Alex Chilton, from Belle And Sebastian's beautified appreciation of Simon And Garfunkel to Superstar's interpretation of Stax soul, Glasgow's symbiotic relationship with the US never ends. `I think it's the port mentality, like Liverpool in the sixties - the next stop is America,' laughs Love. While it might not quite have reached Merseysound hysteria yet, something in Glasgow has changed, a shift from wilful amateurism to an ever-strengthening, communally stoked self-belief. The defiant spirit is still there, but now it's got new ambition and an accessible melody. Amazingly, it's honest and vibrant. What's more, the music business is just a little too far away to spoil the party. By its very determination to be unhip, Glasgow is becoming the hippest musical city of all. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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