Sinister: THAT NME interview part iii

[Andrew.Dean at xxx.uk]

three is the magic number, yes it is...

FIVE MINUTES LATER, WE find ourselves sitting in the waiting room of a
disused church. What's more, we're in the presence of Stuart Murdoch. Not
that's he chatting to us, mind you, rather he's looking on as the rest of
his group - bar the two girls, Isobel Campbell (cello) and Sarah Martin
(violin) - bicker about photos.
     "I don't want to do it," declares the recently arrived Stevie. "I lust
look stupid in photos."
     "I'll do it," volunteers Richard.
     "I'll be in it too," adds the not-actually-in-the-band Neil.
     "Well, I'm not going to be in it," snorts Chris Geddes indignantly,
before returning to his book (The A To Z Of Synthesizer Technology).
     The pains of being principled are becoming more obvious by the minute.
A suggestion that this is something of a fuss about nothing is met with
withering glares. Stuart Murdoch insists that he's strictly here to pack
his equipment into a van and storms off into a different room. Finally, a
compromise is reached: the whole band (bar Stuart, naturally, who will
frizzle up and die if a camera is even waved in his general direction)
agree to be photographed while they're shifting their instruments out of
the studio.
     Slowly, we all troop down to the basement. The NME photographer is
forced to stand in the rain for ten minutes and take occasional snaps of
people with their heads obscured by amps. With much giggling, the task is
completed, and Stuart Murdoch climbs into the driver's seat and speeds off
around the corner.  Unsurprisingly, we don't see him again.
     Back in the waiting room, Richard offers to appear in a few posed
shots In the main church. After some cajoling, Stevie agrees to loin him,
but only if he can play the banjo. While they're gone, Chris confides that
in the future the band are considering getting a friend to take one picture
of them all playing live and forcing magazines to use that ("It'll show us
doing what we do"). We smile wanly, and begin to wonder whether our
patience will hold out indefinitely.
     It doesn't. When we finally get Stevie, Richard and Chris huddled
around the tape recorder, we demand to know why they insist on making such
a big deal out of everything.
     "It wasn't a big deal," declares an astonished Stevie.
     "You'd been told in advance that you were allowed to come up and take
pictures of two of the band and that's what happened," argues Chris.
"Haven't we got the right to say, 'No'?"
     We just have to indulge you, then?
     "That's up to you."
     Right.
     "Anyway," reasons Stevie, it was Radio 1 that made us, because they
got sent a copy of 'Tigermilk' and played it all the time. We've been in
the music press a few times, but... um, I don't know, I just feel we were
championed more by the radio."
     This, of course, is true. Belle & Sebastian's career was given impetus
by the radio, and they haven't had to rely on the press since. A fact that
seems to have endowed them with a sense of moral superiority. They know
that they are a rarity: a band who owe their progress almost entirely to
their own efforts and to the fact that their songs perfectly mirror the
tribulations of a long-neglected section of the record-buying public.
Stuart Murdoch's songs are a rallying point for the disaffected. For the
most part his characters are burdened with awful clothes and physical
deformities, they've been bullied and spent their lives as victims and yet
in these songs they're treated as heroes. And for many people that's
undoubtedly their appeal.
     "That's fair enough," admits Stevie.
     "Maybe," mutters Chris (whose favourite group is Primal Scream and
isn't overly keen on being portrayed as a softy). "Although, I like to
think that most of the people who listen to us can see beyond 'indie'
music, but I'm probably just kidding myself.
     "We're probably the last bastion of indie bedroom stuff to most
people, I just don't see it like that. I think we've got more in common
with the Muscles Shoals rhythm section (legendary R&B backing band - Ed)
than, say, The Smiths, and I honestly, honestly believe that..."
     "The way we work we're more like Sly & The Family Stone," reveals
Richard astonishingly.
     Except wired on felt-tip pens rather than crystal meth. But anyway...
     "The songs are all just about buses and school girls as far as I can
make out," offers Chris. "What else do you need to know?"
     Well quite a lot actually.. it would be quite interesting to know why
a 29-year-old man is writing in the style of a disaffected teenager for a
start. unfortunately, in the absence of Stuart Murdoch, that (arguably the
most interesting thing about Belle & Sebastian) is something we're not
destined to find out. Instead, as our time runs out, we're treated to some
jokes.
     "Well, that's his genius, isn't it?" quips Chris. "He's cornered that
niche in the market. We sat in the pub one night, coked out of our brains
and we thought, 'Who can we sell this to?'..."
     "Maybe we should put a parental advisory sticker on all our records,"
suggests Richard. "'Warning: this record might contain tweeness.' Ha ha
ha."
     It's the last (half) sensible thing that they have to say. As they get
up to leave we're left wondering what we can make of a group that write
such poignant and heart-wrenching songs, but act with such incredible
self-indulgence.
     From afar, their success looks like a triumph for principled actions,
up close it looks like an accident of bad behaviour. After all, here is a
band who seem to object to doing interviews and photographs simply because
they can't be bothered rather than because of any radical manifesto. It's
hardly punk rock. is it? Still, that's their prerogative.
     As for Stuart Murdoch, he claims he'll never do another interview. In
light of how his band presents itself in his absence, may we suggest he
thinks again?

Grrrr

andy

next, that candy factory interview...


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.             Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave
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