I was in Glasgow long after I should have been. And I was sorry to have left Glasgow long before I had. The angry crowd at the late-night Stansted terminal, informed that the flight had been cancelled. The cute green go patches on the lassies' turquoise shirts. (Who could have a go at a go lassie like that? Folk with more consistency than me.) The comedy taxi driver leading us away from Scotland, into Essex. Darkest Essex - except that it's probably even darker in winter. The Palms Hotel in Romford, doubtless staging the vast dregs of a wedding bash: overspilling with shiny girls at 1:30 in the morning. The 'music' thumped louder than any I could think of. Fans of Relentlessly Thumping Contemporary Pop that The Kids are Into (Ewing, Le Trouss�, Raggett, et al) should have been there. Especially if I could have been where they were. Like a swap. Yes. The hotel bath that seemed to fill so quickly. The June rain outside in the middle of the night. The panic of seeing the time of waking: 8:30. The foreign receptionist, Lotte, and her vague, game bids to get me off her hands and into the playpen of the airline people. The mild compensation of the breakfast with Sinatra, Cole, Bacharach/David et al - a tremendous touch. Feeling that this was an unusual way to spend Bloomsday. 11:00? That's somwehere between 'Nestor' and 'Proteus', isn't it? The Irish passenger in the cab who sagely made out to know all about Joyce. Well, it's easily done. The LRB in the queue back at the beloved Stansted. The project that still needed (needs) finishing, to be worked on while waiting for boarding time: 'United States Postal Service' over a cappucino, then through for a major Boss pastiche in view of the runways, engines and fins. Hey, this is progress. England falling away to be photographed. The brochure, like Tintin used to read, saying that Glasgow's main feature was the Clyde. The lyric to run over and over and fiddle with. The Bucks Fizz. The kids laughed when I told them I'd had a Bucks Fizz. I got out The Charm of the Highway Strip so that they'd announce that we were coming in to land, please switch off all walkmen. They did. They always do. Scotland. The bus to the city - The City, if you like. The roar of the bus over 'Crowd Of Drifters'. The city in its metropolitan magnitude. I must tell my editor to take out that stuff I wrote about Grand Central Station and replace it with something about Central Station. Awesome. And all of this in the pale summer. The Underground. Perhaps I had waited years to use the Glasgow Underground, and never even known it. It felt that way. You could 'fall in love' with that tube system. I 'did'. At Kelvinhall I stumbled down an alley then realized the street was the other way. In a box I rang 96. 96, I said - I'm in a box, you're in some frocks. I tried to follow his directions. I wound up back in the alley. I tried again. Here he was coming down the road. His T-shirt bore a legend. I asked him if that was the university that threw him out. No, it was another university that threw him out. Kelvingrove Park. A 'twee' name, if you like, for the distant and the outsider. I suggested to my editor that B&S had recolonized the nomenclature of Glasgow and made it (for want of a better word) twee. - Yes, he said - for it used to be Kelmanesque. The park, the crowds. Only one of them was bothered that it was Bloomsday. He let in no goals. Well, that's my story. Don't believe it. I was asked what it was like to be hanging around with a load of young girls. In fact, when I was young, I often used to hang around with a load of young girls. I mean, assembly was once a week. Here were characters with welcoming attitudes. Here was a man who looked like David Moore, revisiting the circuits. Here was a boss that looked just like Honey, calling me Lloyd Cole. Easy mistake to make, if you try hard. Here was The Velocity Girl, theorizing cogently about meta-pop and the conceptual work to be done upon the country genre. Here were the Jinxed Minxes. Here was the Foxy Field, picking up injuries on a foreign one. Here was the care bear, in elegant mourning for her unhappiness. My editor theorized once more about the metropolitan character of Glasgow. I must remember not to show him that paragraph above. It was very pastoral. A century of elves. In a bar, my first Glaswegian bar, my editor and I defended the idea of artifice, or the artifice of ideas (j'exagere). What I mean is - I have always agreed with him about posing. I took a photograph of him looking at a photograph of himself looking at a photograph of himself. I met Sprout. She from Chesterfield, like. That a Liberal Democrat weakhold. The care bear warned me not to write 'Tractor Boy'. - If you write 'Tractor Boy', she warned, I shall never listen to you again. It's a good thing she didn't tell Merritt not to write 'Railroad Boy' or 'Falling For The Wolfboy'. Or is it? No, not necessarily. (I expect someone to write and tell me that the former, or indeed the latter, is a cover. No, I don't.) Why did she not like 'Tractor Boy'? It would be a mere pointless exercise in genre exploration. I tried to enlist my editor to argue that pointless generic exercises could be a good thing. Most probably disagree with us. We probably disagree with us, sometimes. Mooro was the new pinefox, in a notebook sense. Carsmile was - where? Robinson was charming. - It's a Pool Marathon, he growled. The streets were still bright. In a car my editor and I crossed the town so that he could analyze some new graffiti. Quickly. We passed a pub and thought of Peter Miller. There is a street named after him in the city centre. We wound up at a concert hall, arrested by the frayed sound of failing neon. We found the Uptown Shufflers' 'Jungle Book' charming and bizarre. The lyrics so out of context, here, sung by this old man. And how about DOON THE TRACK THE TRAAIIN CAME PUFFING SCOTLAND TEN ENGLAND NOTHIN'!!! ? Belle and Sebastian played far more tightly than I've heard them before - than most people have heard them before. They played *impressively*. Mooro said it well - how can I add to what he's said? Hm -
Line from new song I Love My Car / And good :) In my head all day today.
This was debated on Sunday. I am not convinced. That is ungenerous of me. Maybe I'll regret it.
Stevie Reverb played 3 or 4 notes of the intros to The Beatles' Blackbird before Wrong Girl & The Stones' Last Time before Legal Man.
Yes. I wish he'd played all of 'The Last Time'. Maybe then he would have hit a lengthy, loud guitar solo. That was what I lacked at this gig - loud squalls of guitar playing. Jackson sounded very much like Paul Heaton. Why have we never noticed this before? Their capacity to improvise requests is impressive too. A lot of bands couldn't, or wouldn't, do that. I thought about copying them, till I remembered that I do it anyway, less entertainingly. I don't understand the fuss (if fuss it is) about them playing an encore. I would have thought that NOT playing an encore might show 'less respect for the audience', etc. They played what they played impressively. Outside, Shearer's magical mystery tour. The blue light shimmering up Buchanan Street. The joke about Sauciehall Street and the copper. The queue, in which Shearer did a word-perfect mimicry of my phone message to my editor. The noise inside seemed like the Palms Hotel revisited, till we reached the 60s room. Perhaps I shall not trouble to engage in a load of pointless carping about the unthinking recycling of versions of 'the 60s' to the exclusion of all else. Cookie, Mooro, Honey all together in one corner - I looked at that and could practically feel the quality vibes flowing. The crowd. The violence. The alco-pop. The B&S members walking in in hot clothing. The farewells. The Narrow Wizard and Chu outside the kebab shops. The mansion. Sunday. The folks. The folk. My folk's smaller than your folk. I mean, that's an ALBUM ye've got there, sir. Very impressive. And very hospitable. The roads. Hillhead tube in its grubby romance. The Wizard talking about post-industrial society while waiting for his stout to be poured. The gig analysis from Alder and all de rest. The split over 'I Love My Car'. The organic Honey. Jumpers contest. 'ld' beghtol could have judged it. No-one quite took the garish picture the occasion demanded. The Hogshead. The unexpected return of the editor. Polemics against the Velvets and the Pistols. Sausages and mash. Free drinks. Someone has to be on a golf course, lady. The list bosses' verdicts on the new 45. My best idea was 'Elvis Costello'. It was a fine idea at the time. Now it's a couple of days old. You can have it if you want. The rootsy bar again for trad folk. They wouldn't let me play. I wanted my ball back. Sweetie said something. The gang was whittling itself. Foxy Field relaying beers at the bar and wearing a 'Boring' sticker. A geezer singing unaccompanied; a geezer singing dull songs about Dublin. A secret Byrds cover. Shearer, the pinefox and Chu heading their ways down summer-night streets and hills. The grass, the trees, the skies, the clouds. We ought to remember this. We won't if my camera is playing up. Chu's vocal take on the mandolin of 'All My Little Words'. Back at base, like Chu said, a high-quality jam. The sort of thing you might expect. The outro of 'Wandering Days', I'll have you know, was thrilling. It was like listening to Bowie. It was like *being* Bowie. Lester Bowie. Playing a piano. Still no sign of the West End festival, save that 'Wandering Days'. But the greenery of the streets. The light through the windows. My hosts are pop music fans, they listen to the radio. My editor's favourites were on there. They were dismal. Don't tell him. The cries of schoolkids. The cars on the Great Western Road. University Avenue; the big postcards from the uni shop; the T-Rex. The park, which makes Kids say, 'Don't walk through the park, if you're on your own'. The Transport Museum. The 'peace caravan'. The vintage cars. The romance of the immobile trams. There are fire engines, standing by. I was encouraged to photograph more. They thought it was my 'interest'. Maybe it should be. Outside I wondered whether the ice-cream van ought to be in the museum. The way Sauciehall Street changes its names over and over in reality, but not on the map. The music shop for strings for Shearer; where my grandmother used to work. St Enoch and the vast glass roof. Chips - how many chips can ye eat? Times Square. George Square. The Care Bear. The river. The sadness of the river on a summer afternoon. The care bear pointed out that I shouldn't really like B&S, if I'm going to suggest that they should have louder guitar parts. B&S, she explained, are romantic. The bridges. This is sounding like Robinson. Missing. Inaction. Not a single Lloyd Cole vinyl record, but a Bowie one, and not Lester. The care bear was unconvinced that It's A Shame About Ray could be any good. The streets, closing down. The estates like scenery in a Glasgow film. I can see how they make those films, now. They just start the camera. The B&S record again. It's true, the strings on track 2 are nice. It's true, they have dulled down track 3. Once again, that guitar part should have been mixed way up higher. They should try using the care bear's gear. You should see it. I mean, hear it. One minute it's Robert Quine, the next it's Robert Forster. John Martyn, come to think of it. Wish Mooro could have been there to hear *that*. Here came Cookie and the Shearer again. Working men, like in a Boss song. Working hard all day / to earn ma chips. We were shown a video. It was engaging. Some don't love the arrangement of the record, some do. I can't see much wrong with it, actually. The final shots of the video are tremendous. The cookie knocks things over, earlier. People play instruments. People played instruments. 96 played acoustic guitar. The care bear played the bass guitar. The Shearer played percussion. The ensemble was - again - terrifically engaging. I hope not to forget it. Cookie doesn't forget much. Write something and he'll still remember it six years later. He should be a spy, or a 'Mr Memory' or something. We left the care bears to make their plans, and toured the dark city for the last time. The Shearer demonstrated his wizardry on the computer, and the crossword. He makes wee CDs. Honest. In the morning a relative of his told me that 'Goin' the messages' means, going out for essential provisions. I went out and did not return. Hillhead to Buchanan Street. The air in the streets was rainy and clear, if that makes sense. A fiddler played. Inside a shopping centre, Oasis were being covered by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. And soon it was all gone. Gone again into colours and names on a map, which I looked at with a pang in my heart, thinking, I wish I was still in Glasgow. Then I realized that I was. We were still waiting for the aeroplane to take off. When it did, all those people and buildings swooping away into the rear-view mirror of eternity. Those wee folk at their jobs or their dole offices. The colours and shapes of the city cut loose and covered by the clouds. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Spot the hottest trends in music, movies, and more. http://buzz.yahoo.com/ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+