Sinister: Not really very lucid

[Nick Dastoor]

Bah, a new job and I'm not getting enough time to waste hours joining
in the list anymore.  And I'm very scared of installing an IRC program
on my PC.  An element of disharmony seemed to creep into the list
whilst I was been away.  Just all close your eyes and dream of horses
in the Czech Republic, the first flush of Spring and games of kick the
can in Kew Gardens and you'll soon feel much, much better.  Another
thing I recommend doing next time the sun is shining is starting your
day with the session version of 'Lazy Line Painter Jane' at top
volume, windows wide open.  The neighbours won't complain.
I know it's too late for questions to the band, but I've got one that
maybe you lot are better equipped to answer anyway. I just thought I'd
step back from it all a minute and ask whether or not I'm being
hopelessly blinkered in thinking that Belle And Sebastian really have
inspired the most fanatical, excited following of anyone in years. 
And if I'm not, do you think the band _know_ that they have?  It must
be very hard for anyone who suddenly 'makes it' in any way for the
first time in their life to be objective about just how successful
they are.  I know they're not selling out two-week residences at
Wembley Stadium just yet, but it strikes me that it _must_ all explode
fairly soon.  Or is it just that they are extraordinarily appealing to
a certain section of the population and its just that that section
happens to consist of us and all our friends?  I just get so excited
when I hear of converts like that Wall Street analyst brother in law
someone mentioned a while ago.  It's the sheer perversity of things
like that that thrills me.  I'd have little interest if it were just
some sell-out businessman with a vaguely 'indie' student past who buys
Oasis CDs.  It's the thought of people who don't really listen to
contemporary pop and rock at all but hear this peculiar band from
Scotland and find themselves hooked almost in spite of themselves.  I
never got all this stuff about them being charming in an amateurish,
lo-fi way.  I know they can be that at times (I was there on Friday
night in Manchester) but when I put on 'If You're Feeling Sinister'
for the zillionth time, I'm still struck by how musically
accomplished, immaculately arranged and yes _well-produced_ it is. 
"Nobody writes em like they used to so it may as well be me" - oh the
utterly warranted cockiness.  They'll never storm the world with a
4-track demo of 'Hurley's Having Dreams' (much as I love it) but I
think its extraordinary how they lost none of that charm, and added a
whole lot more, when they made such a 'proper' sounding album.
I know I'm ranting, but I think rants (nice rants anyway) have their
place alongside biscuit/bar tomfoolery.  I still haven't decided
whether SM was taking the piss with that.  Was it really Danny Baker
in disguise?  [For our non-UK friends, Danny Baker is an old man who
wrote for the NME in the 1970s and is now part of the Chris Evans
media mafia that took trivial male conversations out of the 
popular-culture obsessed clever-clever ghetto and turned them into a
mass media industry.  A bit like Tarantino films without the violence
and good soundtracks.  The original perpetrators of such mental
masturbation then saw themselves for what they were and became a bit
embarrassed with the whole thing.  This may have inadvertently led to
last year's abortive 'new seriousness' movement in UK indie music. 
The problem with which was, of course, that most people who like to
act all serious and troubled are not deep or artistic but just boring.]
But having said all that, it is still fun to talk about biscuits and
bars and children's TV.  Just don't let it take over your life.  Or
you'll end up calling a Danny Baker phone-in.  I should divulge at
this point that I am a regular listener to Danny Baker's Sunday
morning GLR show.  But I like to pretend that it's only to hear Laurie
Pike talking.  Shall I stop now?







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