Outside Virgin Records in Sheffield City Centre seems to be the kids new meeting place. Shooed from the steps of the City Hall by the police they gather there now in loose bunches, all hugs and skateboards and hooded tops they clamour and languish - a big middle finger to the uninterested shoppers. Often Ive thought about taking their picture and taking it back home to Birmingham to show to the sk8er kids there who hang around the town hall steps. I think everywhere has them; hordes of the disenfranchised all stuck swearing at the dismal March skies. Often Ive thought about taking their picture, as I say, but never more so than on Monday I was walking past Virgin Records, a troupe of them there draped variously over one of the benches, grinning, one of them, more a postcard punk type than nu-metaller, replete with tartan trousers and a Mohawk (Im seeing more and more of those at the moment), pulled up the sleeve of his tatty leather jacket. My eyes, and the eyes of his friends were immediately drawn to the five or six inch or so long cuts running horizontally across his arms, he kept grinning, seemed proud even eyes agog, the girl sitting right next to him on the bench looked horrified, the scarred arm directly in front of her she turned her gaze up to him but didnt say anything. What on Earth could you say to that anyway? A bit later I walked past them again on the way back from wherever it is I had been going (I cant rightly recall myself) and they were laughing away in mock combat, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all. This post, by the way, is dedicated to people who are on the list but have never posted, or those who post once after theyve just gotten out of the nursery something along the lines of Hi Im Keith from Stourbridge, Ive just been given a voice, am very nervous, well bye! Oh p.s. I love Belle and Sebastian! and are never heard from again, and to those who post once every six months or so saying something like I only post every six months so Ill see you again in six months. This post is for all of you. I dont mean to sound disdainful here at all, though I can see how it could be interpreted like that, but thats not my intention at all. Im going to tell you a bit about my day yesterday then, it was quiet for a Saturday, you know how it is sometimes. I went out with the intention of changing my train tickets for next Wednesday to the following Friday instead. The station was pretty empty by the time I arrived, and everyone inside mysteriously dry which contrasted pleasantly with my dripping wet you might say that everyone else took umbrellas out with them, or had hoods, I cant help it if my hood doesnt fit properly. Im starting to like Sheffield station more and more, part of the reason I went out was to mooch about there for a bit and sort of try to take in the ebb and flow of people its nice to think that theyve got somewhere to get to, perhaps even somewhere important, perhaps even somewhere crucial. The trip wasnt a success though, the station was mostly empty, perhaps the rain had kept people in, reigned them in you might say, but luckily that meant I didnt have to queue. Unluckily I couldnt change the tickets, apparently you have to do that seven days in advance of travelling I protested weakly saying that it is seven days Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, putting up a finger for each day, but the ticket lady was having none of it. I might still stay until Friday though, all the cool kids are fleecing British Rail nowadays arent they? Theres a poster about it and everything. Apparently when Richard Ashcroft left The Verve, or disbanded them or whatever it was he took to jumping fares on trains for a time because he couldnt feel grounded anywhere I read that somewhere. Its a pity his music isnt up to much really, because thats a nice thought hard to imagine Ashcroft as a sort of nu-Kerouac though, isnt it? A new psuedo-intellectual horizon with each actual one. Or maybe not so hard, there are certain similarities arent there? I think so. Itd be good if Richard did an album based on the life of Kerouac I think he could call it Big Slur. Ha ha ha. Ive been unfair to them both as well, havent I? Well never mind because theres more on the way up to the station there was yet another anti-war protest sort of doggedly taking place, if you can unite everyone under your banner even given the persistent rain then it might give even more impetus and solidarity to your protest, but it seemed the Sheffield coalition couldnt quite manage that. There were a few soggy hardcorists sticking at it, standing right next to the Big Issue seller with his dreary monotone voice, perhaps he deserves a bit more sympathy himself, not in a we should be looking after our own way, nothing as crass as that but given the proliferation of all this gushing support for the anti war movement, perhaps its time for the proper left (imagine those scare quotes much, much bigger, Im not sure how to change the font size mid-flow at the moment) to take a step back and wonder quite what its motives are now. Ive almost forgotten myself. Are those brave souls who help up their Daily Mirror placards in London a few weeks ago on the same side as the people whove been on about Iraq and oil and whatever else for years now? Thats not meant to be a loaded question, nor one which is derogatory to either side really, but this is again maybe where binary breaks down. Only 10 types of people. Ha. I wanted to get a photo of those bedraggled protesters because I thought they looked a bit removed from whatever the popular face of this protest has become, so I went off up to Boots and bought a film, but by the time I got back they had dissipated, leaving the Big Issue seller more or less on his own again, lethargically intoning the same laconic phrases over and over and over, like the locked groove at the end of Metal Machine Music. Its probably something of a cliché in certain circles, but wouldnt it be great to have that played at your funeral, side four of MMM? Imagine everyone filing out the church as that same loop churned on and on, the faint play of the sun through stained-glass windows yet further fragmented through black lace. Thatd be lovely. Thinking a bit more about John Cage too, I wanted to share this poem with you, its called Opening the Cage: 14 variations on 14 words I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry. John Cage I have to say poetry and is that nothing and am I saying it I am and I have poetry to say and is that nothing saying it I am nothing and I have poetry to say and that is saying it I that am saying poetry have nothing and it is I and to say And I say that I am to have poetry and saying it is nothing I am poetry and nothing and saying it is to say that I have To have nothing is poetry and I am saying that and I say it Poetry is saying I have nothing and I am to say that and it Saying nothing I am poetry and I have to say that and it is It is and I am and I have poetry saying say that to nothing It is saying poetry to nothing and I say I have and am that Poetry is saying I have it and I am nothing and to say that And that nothing is poetry I am saying and I have to say it Saying poetry is nothing and to that I say I am and have it Its very apt I think. It makes me wonder though, stuff like that and maybe John Barth as well my old English teacher said more than once that he preferred poems that sounded great when spoken aloud, full of bombast I suppose he was referring specifically to Tennysons The Revenge and WH Audens As I Walked Out One Evening as I recall. But which is more satisfying, laughing at the lit-crit jokes and digs in John Barth or your voice cracking, plein demotion, as you soar through a reading of Lines Written above Tintern Abbey? And what of Barths love for Don Quixote The Odyssey et al, not to mention that the most straight-down-the-line bits of his are easily among his best, and what of Cages love for the didacticism of Thoreau? As Cage himself puts it Which is more musical, the sound of a truck passing a music school or the sound of a truck passing a factory? Today was another lovely day though, its so nice to be able to get up late and still feel like youve done a whole days worth of stuff. Talk of spring being in the air was a bit deflated after yesterdays downpour, but it was back in style today and with a blustery vengeance. Though as I write this there are a few streaks of rain forming against my window. Alas. Better now than earlier on though I suppose. I went for another long, aimless walk, Ive worked out the routes that all but ensure I wont meet anyone I know its better that way. Todays one took me down to the park and along the river I wondered vaguely if its the same river that Jarvis Cocker talks about in that song offve We Love Life I forget the name now (is it Wickerman?), the long one in the middle of the record anyway I expect it isnt the same river, but you never know do you? Im sure Ive been past that particular river, the one in the song, just down the road from The Leadmill, which he mentions in the song as well, but I dont know if thats the same one I walked beside today. Its good to be able to place these things, you know? I remember a few years back when I bought Plones For Beginner Piano (from what I gather Plone have taken something of a permanent hiatus from making music, a bit like Pulp you might say, which is a real shame I think) and put it on my walkman on the bus home the first tune on the record is called On My Bus and Plone are from Birmingham you see, just like I am. So there I was, on a bus, listening to a tune called On My Bus and who knows, it might even have been written about the very same bus route that I was on. It seemed like an appropriate soundtrack, though perhaps I only thought that because of the context, probably a bit of both. I like the idea of laptoptronica being a sort of new folk music, I forget whose idea it is, probably a lot of peoples, its a good idea, and Plone are, or were, a bit like that. Maybe its hard to imagine them as the musical accompaniment to the industrial heartlands of Birmingham, to rows of houses with doors that step right out onto the pavement, but they seem entirely appropriate as a reaction to those pre-fab units that seem to spring up in about five minutes, their flimsiness and brute ugliness. Its such a shame that no one bothers building those lovely factories anymore, the sort that would have Kieran Devaney and sons or whoever the owner was, incorporated somewhere into the brickwork who wouldnt want their name enshrined like that? So many of those buildings are sitting unused, which is a shame. Unsafe I suppose though. Attention to that kind of detail is important though I think. Plone understand that, but they also know that sometimes its ok if the details get overlooked in the great grand gush of pop music. - Kieran _________________________________________________________________ Stay in touch with absent friends - get MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.co.uk +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+