Sinister: the moon in june stuff
Forgive me, friends, it's going to be one of those posts. Robin said: I
do agree that Underachievers Please Try Harder is probably the better album - it's one of the best albums I've heard for ages.
To Underachievers Please Try Harder, I'd like to add Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks by The Brunettes, straight outta, um, New Zealand I think. Hang on, let me check. Actually no mention of their origin on the album sleeve, but there's a thank you to Neil Finn, so that must mean they're Kiwis, right? Perhaps not. The sleeve *does* say that the p in a circle and the c in a circle were 2002, but I've only just heard about them so I'm counting it as a 2003 release. Just try and stop me. It's one of those cute, funny, dreamy, happysad, occasionally twee, more often playful and knowing, amazing, clever, and inspiring records that makes you want to start badgering people and making tapes and passing them on, you know *just like back in the day*. Or 1997, as it's otherwise known. Robin also said:
It's funny, I've heard a few people dissing the whole "I'd rather be in Tokyo, I'd rather listen to Thin Lizzy-oh" line, because it doesn't rhyme properly. I find this very odd. Stuart's lyrics have never really rhymed properly. In Lord Anthony he rhymes "toff" with "maths". I don't think rhyming has ever had anything to do with why i like Stuart's lyrics. Anyone can use a rhyming dictionary if they want to. I expect he doesn't want to.
I agree. Two points. One: mere rhyming doesn't denote talent. It certainly has nothing to do with a great song. The best songs are always just off-rhyme, things that shouldn't rhyme but do, because of the phrasing, the delivery, the emotion, or all of the above. Two: the quoted couplet is actually very clever - you can almost see the smirk on his face as he's singing it. You have to be a good lyricist to pull off that kind of crazy shit, girlfriend. It's all very well to moan "oh, it's just sticking an -o on the end" but no-one else thought of it did they? The best ideas are always as plain as the face on your nose. The fact that, as Senor Chu pointed out at our recent coffee morning, it's actually a nod to Thin Lizzy's cover of "Whiskey In The Jar", which goes "I'll have a whiskey in the jar-o" makes it even better. Do you see? How many levels? It's working on? That's right: two. It's also funny. Which is good enough for me. Three levels then. Well, two and a half. That's about it. This album by The Brunettes is still great, by the way. Bless them. x +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Ian Watson was talking about the brunettes album, and he was spot on cos it's a great record. And they are indeed from New Zealand. When I listened to it I started wittering on about how it was like Michael Chabon's book 'the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay', and the bit where Dr Wertham's Seduction of the Innocents is published and the national outcry against comics resulted in mass comic book pyres across the USA. It's all to do with the embracing of fantasy, or at least imagination... I then went on to compare them to Phantom Lady's hair. Which made sense at the time. Uh, the review is here http://www.tangents.co.uk/tangents/main/2002/dec/phantom.html if anyone is interested. Oh and Ian, did you get a Brunettes colouring book with yours? Sorry if that sounds like snobbery or elitism or something, but actually it leads me to my next topic which is, ah, the whole notion of elitism and 'ownership'... I've argued long and hard in the past (archives... archives...) about how some of the most essential ingredients of the whole Pop experience are notions of elitism. I just think it's inescapable, if only for the fact that the Pop moment is a personal one, and you can't get much more elitist than that. There's also the sense of elitism based on not wanting to engage with the mainstream, for whatever reason; perhaps because the thought of being with too many other people who all 'share' a similar aesthetic terrifies (or repulses) you, perhaps because you just don¹t like people that much, period. Whatever. And ownership of art, well, in a mediated culture that's the interesting part; how one takes ownership of the art by making a commitment to it, by engaging with it, making it a part of your own world. By doing so you change the 'meaning' of the art irrevocably (even if it's only a slight change) - in simple terms the song is about 'x' to the songwriter or band, but it's about 'y' when I listen to it. It becomes personal. This was always something I loved about B&S in the first instance; they seemed to me to understand that and to play with the whole mediated ownership thing. Looking back now it seems less important, and the whole point seems to have been clouded. And that's fine because we all change. So yeah, my point was going to be something along the lines of 'does it really matter to you if B&S 'make it' with this record?' Does it change your ownership of the moments? Does it make your moments any less personal or magical just because loads of other people may all start frothing at the mouth and before you know it the air is filled with mutterings about johnny come latelys and bandwagons... Well, does it? I used to hate being accused of being a snob because I stopped listening to a band when they became 'popular'. Such was other's interpretations of my musical tastes: I only liked stuff if it was obscure and 'difficult'... It was partly true of course, and playing the part of the truculent old git was always appealing up to a point (and still is), but nevertheless it irked me and it still does because it was and is so untrue. Usually I stop liking someone because their records start to bore me or I just got excited by something else and couldn¹t afford the time, energy or cash outlay to keep up to date with so and so's latest record which all the kids were raving about or blah blah blah. Nothing to do with 'popularity' per se. So personally I say 'yay!' to Belle and Sebastian on the radio, playing their songs for children and adults who meander along in an eternal state of prolonged adolescence... I say 'hurrah!' for radio DJs and journalists proclaiming B&S their favourite band and making a song and dance about the new record because hey, you know what? It deserves a song and dance being made about it because it's ACE. And if it goes to number one and all the kids start wearing tasteful retro 'dog on wheels' hoodies then I'll grin and whoop along (quietly so no one can actually hear me of course) with the best of them. Because it wont change my memories, it wont change my moments. Belle and Sebastian will still belong to ME. And finally, thanks to Robin Stout for his suggestion we all start picketing B&S to come play at my school. I think we should all email Banchory with an email subject 'play at the Duke's school! do it to/for the kids!'. Go on, you know you want to. And again, finally (honestly), apologies if this mail was even more unhinged than usual. Just got back from the Open Evening... Bleugh. My head is mush. Keep those dreams burning forever. The Duke www.tangents.co.uk the home of unpopular culture PO box 102 . Exeter . ex4 6yz . UK +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
On Friday, Oct 2, 1970, at 16:46 America/New_York, duke of harringay wrote:
Usually I stop liking someone because their records start to bore me or I just got excited by something else and couldn’t afford the time, energy or cash outlay to keep up to date with so and so's latest record...
The Duke touches on but does not explicitly state this other tenet of popularity: once bands become 'popular' they really lose it. Is it too many cooks in the kitchen? Expectations doomed to failure? Whatever, it's true. So surprise, surprise, I like the new album. Perhaps its because Stuart doesn't trade off the songwriting credits so readily as on 'Fold Your Hands...' I hope the album reaches number one; I hope all the kids pay attention this time. Its hard to begrudge anyone who is putting energy and attention into the same thing as you are. (And all that time previously spent claiming who was first seems kind of stupid and pointless now). Hello. Matthew +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
participants (3)
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duke of harringay -
Ian Watson -
Matthew H