I don't seem to have posted much recently. I spend all my time eating instead. But I still lost weigh over Christmas. Anyway, I wouldn't like anyone to think I was dead, as for a start my list crushes would start getting awkward questions from the police. lesleyjo has taken to quoting this stolen piece of Stuart Murdoch in her sig file:

"I've just been shining this apple, and it looks so delicious, but I've changed my mind. . .do you want to share it?"

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't find this whole incident cute at all. In fact it makes me feel kind of queasy. Would the Snow White story have worked so well with a banana? Here's another press piece from a while ago. The Evening Standard is the London local paper, not renowned for it's pop coverage, but I quite liked this. Well it's all right, anyway. I've never heard the Blue Peter story before - is it true? Nicholas xxx 04 Dec 1998 Evening Standard The Band That Wants To Be Left Alone: They've been described as 'fey' with annoying regularity. But there's more than winsomeness to Belle and Sebastian, discovers By ZOE WILLIAMS HERE are some regional stereotypes: Liverpudlians always try to do harmonies without sounding too much like the Beatles; the Welsh are fond of funny twangy instruments and big orchestral sweeps; the Scots like to strum in a vigorous, rough-hewn, lo-fi way, and break their instruments at the end; Bristol always throws up genres ending in the word 'hop'. There, see how handy that was? It saves you listening to about 27 albums of the past year alone, freeing up 1,215 minutes (dig my maths!) for sleeping and having baths. However, the eternally awkward and contrary Scots are quietly wriggling out of their particular pigeonhole. Why, just this year they've turned out Mogwai (not rough-hewn at all), Arab Strap (far too cute ever to growl, or make any other lo-fi noises) and, crucially, Belle and Sebastian, the most impossibly winsome, appealing, melody-led eight-piece that ever did be. The eight of them met, vaguely, at some arty college or other in Glasgow in 1995, but they're no Pulp - they didn't spend 12 years playing in pubs before anyone got to like them. They're not fuelled by some overarching passion to make it particularly massive. In their first 18 months as an outfit, they played no more than 18 gigs, which is rather refreshing, now that common practice is to do the gig circuit until the point of nervous exhaustion. They don't really have much dash to them - everything is taken at pootling pace. They release their next single, This Is Just Another Modern Rock Song, on Monday, which is just typical. You can almost hear the conversation - 'I've got a great idea! Why don't we release a totally unChristmasy song just before Christmas, then we can guarantee that nobody will buy it, and they'll all just leave us alone.' It's a marvellous little song with a proper tune, even while the lyrics completely undermine the whole business ('This is just another modern rock song/This is just a sorry lament/ We're four boys in corduroys/ We're not terrific but we're competent'). The whole EP is marvellous, actually, as was the album before it, which is why Belle and Sebastian are never going to be greeted with the indifference they genuinely prefer. Ever since they were first signed in 1996, the band have been relentlessly publicity shy. For a long time, they wouldn't even put out publicity shots of themselves, choosing instead to send snapshots of their mates, lying in the middle of the road and suchlike. Lead singer and prolific songwriter Stuart Murdoch doesn't want to talk about it, really, and most interviewing duty falls to Richard, the drummer, who explains the camera-shy angle thus: 'We're not trying to be difficult. We just thought that people who really liked the music would buy the album anyway, regardless of whether or not we looked ugly enough to scare the kids away from the fireplace.' (A strange Scottish saying, presumably.) Belle and Sebastian have been called fey more often than Noel's been called a Gallagher, but it's a misleading term, which brings to mind much chiffon and tragedy and cooing, art-school nonsense. According to Richard, at least, they're all much more straightforward than that. They don't have some grand plan to keep themselves pure and underground in the face of (yikes!) commercial or critical acclaim. They just have a big meeting every now and again, and if one of them says they're not comfortable with something, whether it's a tour or a release or a cappuccino, they just don't bother. Nor do they actively avoid publicity - hell, this is the outfit who bombarded Blue Peter with sincere requests to play on their show, and just got laughed at. They're not holed up in Glasgow ensconced in some creative idyll, playing recorders and making headwear out of twigs and flowers. They're just eight people, some of whom live together, some of whom don't, some of whom like the pub, some of whom are a bit more subdued, who happen to make good songs together. Live sets, although improved since the very first in 1996 when they 'flapped about like idiots and made a hellish, awful mess', have always been a bit sham-bolic. They also sell out within hours of going on sale. People travel hundreds of miles to see them - in America, thousands. But we needn't equate a cult following with deliberate kookiness. As far as I can make out, they're just a regular gang with an unexpected dollop of talent. And, to come over all Barence Norman, why not? Evening Standard Page 35 Copyright (C) Associated Newspapers Ltd,1993-1997 _________________________________________________________ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+