A car drifted by me, the souped up bass searing as the speakers shredded out some big bolshy record that I didnt recognise (perhaps because everything other than the bassline and drums were drowned out) at top volume, driving slow enough so that everyone could see and hear it. Im sure everyones experienced similar. It got me thinking about cars that is, it made me actually aware of the existence of cars, usually they dont really register other than as inconveniences or obstructions, but that snatch of propulsive low end noise, as abrasive and calculated to annoy as it seemed to be really registered. I suppose you have to be of a certain mindset to drive around like that, its difficult to talk about it without being disparaging it seems an adjunct to a part of a culture that Im not very well versed in. One that works to the exclusion of others and other possibilities, one that places the self at the centre and sees all else as a void to be filled with that self. One that sees roads as a silence to be broken. A hole drilled in the exhaust pipe of life. But consider yourself as a part of that for a moment, it shouldnt be too difficult, and imagine marking your territory like that what kind of a statement would playing say, Belle and Sebastian or (I know I sound like a dickhead for mentioning Merzbow all the time, so I wont here), I dont know, Whitehouse at that volume in your car? Or is the content of the noise irrelevant because the point is less what the music says or is about and rather just the fact that the music *is*? It made me think, as I say. When I went on about listening to headphones while out I said I stopped because the natural sounds are regularly and potentially more interesting than any private soundtrack that I could come up with, but here, with the cars soundsystem so heavily dominating, to the exclusion of all other sounds it was almost the reverse of that. Someone elses soundtrack foist upon you, their version of events overwhelming your own. Forcing closure on the openness of history, you might say. People talking had to momentarily suspend their conversations. People stopped. The ambience of the quiet street was threatened for a moment. Theres a kind of austerity in that moment you sense it coming for a time, theres a few seconds of expectation and then, just as the car passes and theres an instant of pure aesthetic asceticism the hollowed out world that is all sound, with all else just reacting to that sound. And then, as red-shift demands, it disappears more quickly than it came, and things return to normal. I wondered about driving myself I might have mentioned this to people before but a few years ago my parents offered to pay for driving lessons for me and I refused, flat out. I hadnt really given it all that much consideration before, but that refusal surprised me somewhat on closer reflection its mostly down to the fact that I have an innate fear of driving, the prospect of being in control, or, worse still, out of control of something as powerful as that petrifies me. Add to that the singular phenomenon that goes with driving which can turn even the most mild-mannered into a raging ball of frustration and stress. My concentration isnt up to driving either, I get distracted and wrapped up in my own thoughts much too easily. Public transport is too much fun anyway, as nice as it would be to be able to stop wherever you wanted and, I dont know, take a picture or whatever, you cant beat a nice train ride can you? And then today the capricious urge to buy a record came over me I havent in what seems like ages what with various expenditures and what have you, and, well, I thought itd be nice to hear something new. Actually what I had in mind to buy was that newish John Fahey record the Red Cross one - which got an excellent write up in Wire and sounds as though it would fit my current, er, mindset quite well. Its been recommended all over the place, youve probably all already got it I expect and all find it passé and have moved on to No Neck Blues Band 7s or Birchville Cat Motel bsides or something similar. But there I was in the fairly aptly named Rare and Racy Sheffields premier outlet for *v*nt g*rd* tuneage. As shops go its a prevalent and very pressing danger in many respects, stocking all sorts of things that look fantastic in principle your man from Add N to (x), Barry7 I think hes called, has put out two records of Italian library music from the 70s Library music that you *actually* want to hear sez Q magazine in the blurb on the front. I was mighty tempted I cant deny. And similarly tempted by silly things like one of the new Keiji Haino records, silly because since I cant read Japanese I dont even know which of the two it was, and various other bits and pieces the sort of things I heard two years ago on Mixing It and noted down, but have since so forgotten that only the name rings any bells. Its obviously great to buy records in that way, but since I was only able to afford one new thing I thought it best to go with something at least a little bit predictable. Boring of me I am well aware, but there you go. Well to move this along a bit I asked about the John Fahey record, which had been in the window for a while last week, but has since been replaced with a display of gardening books a bit late for planting Id venture, but the lush green covers certainly do fit the current clemency of the weather. I mentioned Rare and Racy being a pressing danger, and these window displays are one of the chief reasons its easy enough to walk past the door but, gosh, is that an early Boredoms import in the window? It was, by the way - a copy of Wow2 and theyve had all sorts of things in there that beckon me inside with their irresistible promise of transcendent noise a Sirens simile here would be almost too obvious wouldnt it? So I wont bother with that. But variously featured have been such delectables as those new Acid Mothers Temple eps, all three of them lined up with their pretty holographic covers sparkling away and, well I wont do a boring list, but if Wire gives it a positive review and its not *too* hard to get hold of then itll probably be in the window of Rare and Racy sometime later that month. Oh yeah, I was moving the story along I asked about the John Fahey record and theyd sold the one copy they had, they can get it on order if I want, but I declined, I wanted something *today*. I decided to move down the road and have a look in Fopp records, which is an entirely different proposition altogether. Apparently Britains leading independent record shop, the stuff it actually stocks is pretty disappointing at times. It has everything youd expect, and probably nothing you wouldnt. Or maybe not everything youd expect even just try getting, I dunno, a Heavenly cd there and well you cant, they dont stock them. But I went for my usual half-hearted wander around and thought about buying stuff like the new things by Cat Power and Steven Malkmus I could go off into a detour about why those artists, and some others who excited me in the past, and whose records I still like a great deal just dont really interest me at the moment, but thatd probably be even more dull than this has become already, so I wont. I was about to leave when, out of the corner of my eye, sitting in the new releases section was a stack of cds by the unpopular American anti-folk combo The Moldy Peaches. My interest piqued I went over and had a look and well, would you credit it, it was a double cd of live and unreleased material. All those potentially better and more rewarding records that I had seen previously dissipated and in a moment of madness I went and bought it. Now it didnt really occur to me at the time to think about whether I really needed fifty-five new Moldy Peaches songs. Did I? Well, probably not. Which isnt to say its a bad record, Im not sure that its a very good one either the live versions of the songs are predictably a bit more rocking than the ones from the album, the great ones still sound great and the slightly irritating ones are still guess what? It does make me lament the fact that I never got to see the band live though, it does sound as though band and audience alike were having a great time at all of the shows, as with a lot of live recordings its difficult to feel part of that listening at home. Alas. The unreleased tracks are pretty sub-standard fare it has to be said. I think, though, in terms of how the Moldy Peaches fit into whatever musical landscape you care to draw up, this is a fairly perverse release their album from a couple of years ago sounds a bit like a collection of outtakes in itself, few other bands I can think of would release records with the phone going off or whatever in the background, not by accident anyway, but this was, fans of the band, myself included I expect, would argue was all part of the charm, and detractors would argue was part what made them so awful. So I dont expect this collection will win the band any new fans, but then I dont expect that was the intention anyway perhaps its purely a contractual thing with Rough Trade. Which, again, isnt to say that this is a bad record, I just wonder quite what has prompted this release. Oh, and they also cover Hulk Hogans seminal I Wanna Be a Hulkamaniac the prospect of hearing that may have been what swayed me during that brief second while I scanned the tracklisting in Fopp records. Sadly, perhaps even criminally, they dont attempt to replicate Hogans rapping, but instead just go for a couple of blasts through the chorus. A missed opportunity if ever there was one I have to say. In some ways it sums up the entire record for me if the Moldy Peaches were a charmingly bad joke then this new release is that joke taken just that little bit too far. Though perhaps if they wouldve taken the joke a little bit *further* we might have liked them even more. Those kooky kids. Anyway, the other night, on the way home from Leeds, I bought chips from Ainsley Harriots favourite chip shop theres a picture of him in there with all the staff from a few years back. They all look so cheery. Quite satisfying they were too. But thats just detail to ease you into the paragraph really more significantly was my actual return back to where I live and what followed it. Exiting the lift I found the corridor strewn with litter, no less than three Pizza Hut pizza boxes lying outside my door, after thinking something along the lines of Why cant you use the fucking bins? (incidentally, though I rarely swear either in writing or conversation - not through any moral objection, its just nice if it has some impact when you do it I think my thoughts are a veritable post-watershed plethora of profanities, I often wonder absent-mindedly if others are similar, or if people who swear a great deal have relatively cleaner minds), and threw them away myself along with some other stuff. This isnt a particularly rare occurrence, but for one reason or another, probably owing to my tiredness more than anything, it put me in a bad mood. I got in and went to bed. This is where I talk about the perfect digital symmetry of twelve fifty one. If any of you have digital clocks around, and I presume some of you do, then youll no doubt be aware that certain combinations of numbers are a bit special one twenty three (Im talking chiefly about am/pm clocks here, you twenty four hour clock people have a whole range of other interesting combinations, but of course they only occur half as frequently) for example is a pleasant one there are lots and I imagine we all have our favourites. My particular favourite, and it has been since childhood is twelve fifty one go and set your clock to it now and I think youll agree that its pleasing. Done that? Ok, well if I hearken back to my childhood now, as I frequently do then I can remember several occasions, my little head thick with the fug of tiredness and disorientation at being up at so late a time taking some solace in that pretty arrangement of numbers on the clock. Now, pedants among us, I expect there will be one or two might quibble that its not exactly symmetrical because the one of the twelve is a wee bit closer to the two than the one of fifty one is to the five. And thats as maybe, but nonetheless, as such an hour became no longer so alien I found myself regularly transfixed by twelve fifty one, so much so that I often stare straight at the clock for the full minutes worth of its duration, a moment of silent contemplation. On the particular night which I mention, I was in bed as the minute approached and in my tired state I awaited it, thinking that I could finally sleep once it had passed, which comforted me a little. Twelve fifty clicked over and there was some commotion outside people were returning from somewhere, quite loudly, they sounded drunk, quite unusual for a Sunday (though technically it was Monday, but there you go) night they stopped, it seemed, just outside my door and already I was worried that theyd ruin the fast approaching minute. And ruin it they did. Just as the digits changed on my clock (or just digit if youre being technical, but there you go) from outside came the opening bars of Land of Hope and Glory. Matt, the guy who lives across the hall from me had procured this record from somewhere a few weeks prior to the occasion, and it has been the subject of several drunken singalongs in the past, but I did think I had heard the last of it until then. And sing along they did. Given the current political climate, the war and all yknow, I thought it was wholly the most inappropriate thing I had heard in a long time. And there was a venom in their singing, a bitter tone that cut through the drunken slurs and carried on through the next couple of minutes and on to the final crescendos and into their cheers as it finished. Next morning the taste of the litter they had left on the floor still hung in the air. - Kieran xxx Ooh, actually, on a more boring note, I suppose, I should ask if anyone in Glasgow has floor space to put me up for the weekend of the gig. Obviously I'd be eternally grateful and all that jazz. Let me know if you are such a person. Ta. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail messages direct to your mobile phone http://www.msn.co.uk/msnmobile/mobilehotmail +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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