I've been in a heavy Belle & Sebastian mood for a few days now. I'm not really sure why. I haven't listened to or thought about the band this much since I was probably 22, way back in the heyday of Sinister. Maybe it's the fact that I'm nearing 30. Perhaps it's the fact that some of you are popping out little Sinisterites. It could be that the last year of my life has been fairly unsettled and I'm subconsciously using the fact that our fair band is working on a new album and touring again after a few years as a excuse to go back to a time where I cared this deeply about something as relatively innoculously lovely as pop music. Strangely enough, the album I've most been drawn to is Dear Catastrophe Waitress. I think there's no doubt that there's a pretty clear line to be drawn between the pre-FISHYCLAP and post-FISHYCLAP eras. I could just be too familar with the band's earlier material and so I'm trying to explore and love their later material, to get it to mean close to something what Tigermilk, IYFS, and the EPs meant to me when I was younger and stupider. All the music they made after I kind of stopped caring. And I've got to say, folks, that for all its faults, DCW is a tremendously lovely album. I listened to FISHYCLAP straight through yesterday for the first time in ages, and I was Not Impressed. It's clunky, it's sequenced all wrong, some of the playing is off, and it has the worst songs of their career on it. I'm not even talking about The Clunker... songs like "Family Tree", "The Chalet Lines", "Nice Day for a Sulk"... songs that if I never heard again I would be perfectly fine with. I think the worst song on the album, though, is "Don't Leave the Light on, Baby". Not because it's a bad song necessarily, although I've never been a fan of it... no, because the song comes across as insincere, like they don't care or don't buy it. And that's really the problem with FISHYCLAP- it's just not any goddamned Fun. It sounds tired, worn-out, run-down. It's an album from a band that was about to give up. That's what makes DCW such a revelation. That's why I think I've been listening to it so much. For whatever reason, however they managed to do it... B&S got the Fun back. It's not a great album, but you can't fault them for not trying, or doubt their sincerity or just the sheer joy they must have had recording these songs. The title track, "If She Wants Me", "Piazza, New York Catcher", "If You Find Yourself Caught in Love", "I'm a Cuckoo"... they're having a good time, and they want you to, as well. I think I figured out a way to make FISHYCLAP work, though. You pretend it's an EP with this track listing: 1) I Fought in a War 2) The Wrong Girl 3) The Model 4) There's Too Much Love Because, whatever else their faults, they always knew how to begin and end an album. It's just too bad about the rest of it. I don't know how long this mood of mine will last. It might only be another couple of days, or it might be another month. All I know is that I'm enjoying rediscovering this music, and I hope that you'll pop in some of the DCW-era material and give it another listen. Maybe you'll have as much fun with it as I am. Love, Eric -- "Why are the machines so sad?" +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+