I know people slagged Velvet Goldmine (Haynes' long-awaited follow up to [SAFE], a cruelly underrated glam-rock epic) because they didn't understand what it was supposed to be (a lovely, gaudy-colorful, glittering, bisexually erotic glam-rock fairly tale with the 1970s as the Emerald City and

Ooh, I've peaked with the subject heading. And I pinched that. Best make this short. As someone old enough to remember Emlyn 'Crazy Horse' Hughes rampaging through the Swedish defence only to slam his drive against an upright in an otherwise drab, goalless late 70s friendly, Saturday's Euro2000 tedium was a case of déjà vu for me. Except that *this* time, the shining moment in an avalanche of jaw-slacking misery came 2 hours *after* the match in the shape of two Australians wielding acoustic guitars in a tiny record shop. So, not really comparable in any way. Yes, The Go-Betweens were in town again - or at least Robert 'Ham' Forster and Grant 'Beef' McLennan. A terrific little set between the 'NZ Skate-Punk' and 'West Coast Spaz-Jazz' sections in the Rough Trade shop in London's swinging W11, climaxing, almost unbelievably, with "Lee Remick". Trousers and I summoned up enough courage afterwards to hassle Mr F; he and Stevie T hit it off almost immediately with a shared fondness for Lovin' Spoonful lyrics, while I stood around lemon-like until the Antipodean popster noticed my TBWTAS T-shirt. "'struth, mate - they're bonzer, no worries", he said - or words to that effect. Later still Trou's shameless Eric Morecambe dancing almost swayed Robert F (who now has the demeanour of a slightly hip college professor) into joining us for a drink. But not quite. We applauded them as they swanned off pub-bound with a phalanx of journoscum in tow, which I like to think made their day. The spontaneous ovation that is, not the boozing and schmoozing with IPC hacks. Chris McQuain had this to say: the

1980s as a dark place ruled by those twin Wicked Witches, Reagan and Thatcher), only what they simplistically wanted it to be (a Bowie bio-pic, which it was NEVER intended to be).

Funny, I was rather expecting it to be a gaudy, glittery, erotic fairy-tale and I still thought at least half of it was a hideous, sagging mess. I did like the bits with the kids running through the streets to early Eno. There's not enough of that kind of thing anywhere, really. I half-agree with you about [SAFE] (is it really bracketed capitals ?)... the detached, Kubrickian business. I guess I'm a superficial kinda guy. Back to it... Mike. _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+