Madame Cholet wrote:

...

I was genuinely thrilled by 'Are you scared to get happy?' at the age of 18, and I know Matt and Claire wholehearted believed in what they were doing, but their ramblings became increasingly irritating and pictures of cherries and disused railway lines didn't scream 'POP' but Middle England.

First of all it's Clare. Second of all, if you think your 'ramblings' didn't become 'increasingly irritating'...you're mistaken. Thankfully.....

(beth then rambles on for a while...) and i drop by and say, hey, can i sit on your fence? Because i agree wholeheartedly with what (Mc)Taggart said about Gentle Despite, and agree that a lot of what Sarah records released was self-parodied and redundant (i mean, that group, what were they called? Aberdeen? they were the pits...), but i also want to hug beth because she gets it soooo right about what was so great about Sarah, and how getting up the noses of people like (maybe) Robert was part of the whole damn appeal. The Orchids took shed loads of drugs and drank like fishes. So, i would hazzard a guess, did loads of others (certainly the drinking bit..), but what they did NOT appear to do was adhere to the tired old rock'n'roll rhetoric in the way they made records. Top marks for that. And i believe there ARE parallels to draw with B&S, if not simply for the fact that in the NME 'interview' when Richard jokes about putting warning stickers on their records saying that the records might contain tweeness. Pure Sarah. And the fact that they get up the nose of the NME / the music press. Pure Sarah. Sarah records operated well outside of the norm where 'indie' music is concerned, and so do B&S. Sarah records was prinicipled (you may have disagreed with the principles and say that they held un-trendy -today- pc-friendly political views, and that's your perogative), and so too are B&S (or at least they appear that way - if you believe the NME it's more by accident that design, but since when did you believe the NME?).Sarah records meant almost nothing to me after Sarah 50, and only a handful of the early singles actually still make me delighted, but that's hardly the point. What Sarah (and Matt & Clare by implication) did was to engender in many people that there was a world where you could escape the humdrum rampant dullness of rawk, without having to jump stylistic ship totally and go with, say, Hip Hop or Techno. And although i'd find that a bit blinkered, i fear that if i was sixteen i'd have felt the same. That i wasn't sixteen is probably a signifier as to why i'm more on the fence with this than others may be. I dunno. just my opinions :-) keep the faith, duke. -- Tangents On-Line http://www.virtual-pc.com/tangent/ Tangents On-Paper: PO Box 102, Exeter, EX2 4YL, UK tangent@mail.zynet.co.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@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@majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

I am not a bully, I was playing devil's advocate a little. Sarah started off with admirable intentions: passion, idealism and love. But it was soon hijacked by people with no imagination, playing at ickle 4 year olds (people who called themselves 'Neily Weely' for fuck's sake), and at that point all focus was lost. I realise Clare (phew, I spelt it right) rallied against such behaviour, but Sarah could have been so much better if they'd opened their eyes beyond the insipid little boy lost mentality. I never wanted power chords, drum solos, or 'madfrit', I just wanted the next Go-Betweens. Tag Paul don't worry that's my last word on the subject.... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@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@majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------