Sinister: that select article in full!

[david kitchen - jeepster]

has now been posted on the belle and sebastian website at
http://www.belleandsebastian.co.uk/press/interviews/select-1-apr-99.htm

but it's also below

--

The portents are good. In the disturbingly macho spit-sawdust-and-Sky TV public
house there's a row of books on the window ledge. Alongside the Frederick Forsyth
paperbacks sits a mammoth three-volume set titled The World Of Children, a 1950s
educative text with chapter titles including 'Gill Is Worried' and 'The Earth As A
Big Ball'.

Interspersed within are line-drawings illustrating such eternal truths as
'Whispering: A Nasty Habit'. Next to this is another tome called French
Cathedrals. Sanctity side-by-side with childhood innocence: we're clearly not in
South-East London anymore but are already well on the way to being transported to
a strange, slightly adjacent new world.

Entering the more salubrious surroundings of New Cross' Paradise Bar, the shift
becomes complete. For it's here, in what more usually serves as a local gay bar,
that '200 Troubled Teenagers' is being held, the night that bills itself in
classically understated fashion as "an evening dedicated to the Scottish ban Belle
And Sebastian".

A darkened passageway leads you past a woman presiding over programme packs, the
cover of which is a cack-handedly doctored picture of Miss Jean Brodie teaching
her class the dates of the three Belle And Sebastian LPs. It's £3 to enter, but £2
if you're wearing band T-shirts or badges - which accounts for the preponderence
of such gear among the tranquil clusters of fans standing in the shady alcoves and
under the prettily swirling lights.

Far from being a solely sad-lad scene, there are also plenty of Isobel Campbell
clones in evidence, with hair-slides and pinafores in abundance. Thankfully, too,
among the male contingent there are occasional touches of Cocker-esque
shirt-and-tie-smoothie style to offset the expected shy-boy floppiness. This, it
also appears, is a band for all ages. So while some of the cultists look as though
they've just arrived from the nearest student union indie disco, others look like
they'd be more at home in the staff bar.

After a couple of laps of this transformed 'nitespot', it becomes apparent that a
genuinely peculier atmosphere is coalescing. Onto a white drape a projector casts
grainy '70s home videos of a penguin enclosure and a car pulling in and out of a
petrol station. The DJ is playing (whisper it!) tracks from the near-mythical B&S
debut album 'Tigermilk', as well as gems of yesteryear like David Bowie's youthful
novelty hit "The Laughing Gnome".

Xylophones and recorders lie about on tables for those who feel that way inclined
(and many do). The bar, meanwhile, is doing a roaring trade in Tiger Milk Shakes.

The programme pack includes an I-spy card with a list of unreleased songs,
complete with boxes to tick once you've heard of them, and a survey asking, "Who's
best: Belle And Sebastian or Steps?" and "What looks best: Belle And Sebastian or
Belle & Sebastian?" Someone was bound to ask. . . weren't they?

B&S Fandom is an international community who all find a certain security in the
company of like-minded people, leading to Actual Real Relationships and even, in
one instance, marriage (six months ago, between New Yorkers Rachel and JJ). They
are people who'll happily name their offspring Belle and Sebastian. Who'll meet up
- in Primrose Hill, London, or Griffiths Park, LA - for picnics and games of
Twister. Who are often inspried by their heroes to paint or engage in other less
recognised forms of artistic endeavour. Who, incidentally, don't care much for
Pete Waterman (he was personally invited tonight to see what it's all about, but
appears to have had prior engagements).

And who, in order to travel to the forthcoming Bowlie Weekender festival
(conceived by Stuart Murdoch and to be held at Pontins holiday camp in Camber
Sands), are hiring a red double-decker bus in the style of Cliff Richard and The
Shadows' Summer Holiday.

In Summary, your Belle And Sebastian fans are not totally normal. But they demand,
or at least politely ask for, your respect.

Far from a bunch of uniformed saddoes, their ranks are filled with odd-ball
characters like Douglas Stewart, the ex-BMX Bandits singer and earlier champion of
north-of-border tweeness, currently making a documentary on the band for the BBC.
Who better, indeed, to combat the group's legendary camera-shy natures: he was,
after all, in a band with Stuart Murdoch called Deadly Geometry, a bizarre project
whose self-proclaimed mission - oh, the killing irony - was to achieve as much
publicity as possible without actually creating any music. The forth-coming
programme, Douglas also reveals, couldwell include a cartoon of the band
illustrated in the style of an early '70s Bunty annual. Pete Waterman was
apparently invited to provide the narration. Again, sadly, he declined. 

When this backwards-in-coming-forwards Scottish indie-folk combo won their Brit in
February it was one of those great happening-without-permission moments that helps
make pop seem like an interesting way of spending your time: the blank industry
stares on the night, Pete Waterman's tabloid-backed vote-rigging allegations, the
tri-partite aggression that's recently broken out from the pop world with Another
Level and 5ive coming out on the side of Steps.

The meek, it seemed, were ready to claim back at least part of that long-promised
inheritance. It all amounted to a hilarious, momentous, unexpectedly visible
demonstration of power from a group and fanbase that had previously appeared
content to inhabit the margins of the musical world.

That this victory over Pete Waterman and the ruffled pop darlings was achieved
largely via the Internet is only fitting. Cyberspace has always appealed to those
with dispositions of a closeted, furtive nature: the trademark of Stuart Murdoch's
lyrical drift.

So, if Belle And Sebastian really are to the '90s what The Smiths were to the
'80s, this Net connection testifies to how society has become a rather different
place in the interim. Where Smiths fans came together in solidarity with some
oppositional, confrontational idea of changing the world, Belle And Sebastian fans
- as perfect emblems of the downsizing generation - are simply seeking a little
piece of independent space that they can call their own.

That space usually turns out to be the Sinister Mailing List - and it is a strange
place to be. Become one of its 900 subscribers and you're letting yourself in for
a daily torrent of e-mail missives that, on any given day, could include
everything from earnest discussions on lyrics to fictional messages from Stuart's
mum. Votes can be cast on your favourite on-line people. Virtual kisses are
exchanged. It's involved stuff, and the official Belle And Sebastian/Jeepster
Records site gets between 160,000 and 200,000 hits a week.

"People become mates because they've got one thing in common," says Papercuts
fanzine editor Stephen Troussé of the on-line community. "But they don't just talk
about that, they chat about anything. It's like being down the pub - except you're
in three different continents."

So what kind of talk usually occurs in the average Belle And Sebastian chatroom?
"Smut. There's always a lot of smut. . . "

Like Stephen, who also organises regular B&S meetings at Covent Garden's Poetry
Café, many admirers seem unwilling to stop at mere hero worshipping indulgence,
preferring instead to use the music as a jumping-off point for creativity.
Alistair Fitchett, aka The Duke Of Harringay, has written a series of booklets
called Belles Lettres (in part as homage to the similar Stuart David booklet Ink
Polaroids Of Belle And Sebastian) in which he's attempted to capture the spirit of
their songs.

"I made about 50 or so of those and sold them at the Manchester shows. They sold
out really quickly, actually," says Alistair, a Tiverton art teacher who forced
his reluctant pupils ("They were all going, 'Oh, who's this, it's rubbish!'") to
design alternative album covers for 'The Boy With The Arab Strap'. "I have met
Stuart and Isobel and... it was nice, but what I really hate about pop music
generally is this idea that the people who make the music are somehow different.
I've met a lot of interesting people through the fanclub, but I prefer
appreciating pop music as an individual, not being part of some clique or gang.
The hardcore people who I feel most in common with are those who are doing things
themselves - not just consuming, not just buying the records and talking endlessly
about what Stuart meant by this or that."

Following in this vein is one Sean Fleming who has been partly inspired by Belle
And Sebastian ("everything now is more like a show and this isn't a show") to
become an expressionist painter and musician. "You'll probably hear about me this
time next year," he confidently assures. Is it possible, then, that a burgeoning
Belle And Sebastian-inspired arty-literary-boho scene is in waiting, ready to
sweep away Cool Britannia's over-hyped chancers?

Talk to the group's chief female figure, Isobel Campbell, and it becomes clear
that the
band are, rather than true icons in the Morrissey mould, simply gifted extensions
of the same quietly non-comformist world their fans occupy. Softly spoken - at
times faltering, at times chatty - she's obviously still new to the world of
interviews. And having only just finished college, she's no doubt rather taken
aback at finding herself something of a style guru.

Like the rest of the group, she's really neither a complete wide-eyed ingenue nor
an utterly knowing ironist - which goes some way to supporting the idea that their
non-image's absurd success falls somewhere between happy accident and media
literate masterplan.

"I just thought that when I went to university to study music... All my friends
were signing on, and they were all lovely and things... I just thought that would
happen to me," she recalls. "Then I joined the band and we were just suddenly
getting all these phone calls and people asking us would you like to play here,
blah blah blah. It's great and it's not to be knocked at all but even just the
general business of it all is something to get used to."

So does it feel odd to be the subject of a cult? "I suppose it is a bit strange.
They all sort of meet and chat to each other... People do write to us as well, and
we always try and reply. We get quite general ones just to Belle And Sebastian and
a few others to each of us individually, saying things like, you know, how they've
been quite fed up recently, things like that. I suppose it is quite odd that
people write in to people they don't know. Sometimes people come up to you and
talk to you and you don't think they know who you are and it turns out they're
Belle And Sebastian fans."

There's also plenty of unusual - if sort of appropriate - freebies flying their
way "People send us lots of drawings. There was one time I got some silver angel
wings. That was nice. And just lots of little gifts. Oh, and I got a dress sent to
me and it fitted me perfectly. Actually, I don't even know if it was for me, it
just sort of emerged. There was a note attached saying, 'I wonder if someone in
Belle And Sebastian
would like this?' It was blue velvet, sort of a pinafore thing..

So are you all quite excited after the Brits? "I think our families are a lot more
than us. Everything kind of exploded when it happened. It was quite touching
because of how obviously all the fans on the Internet had got together and
initiated it all. And it was good to see Mick and Richard on the telly"

So are you all getting something of a taste for the limelight now? "I don't
know... We're all really, really busy and we're doing as much as we can manage.
Probably not. Some bands get so over-exposed because you see their faces on the
cover of everything and you end up quite sick of it really. You're not going to
see our faces splashed all
over the billboards or anything."

Back in New Cross, the mood of enchantment is escalating fast, thanks in large
part to the airing of huge chunks from Belle And Sebastian's canon. Conversation
at the bar revolves around such topics as whether switching from four to
three-track singles to become eligible for charts (as B&S appear likely to do)
constitutes selling out'. And whether it's shameful to own up to only having
'Tigermilk' on tape. At one point immoderate excitement runs through the assembly
at the rumour that Jo, the cover star of 'Tigermilk' (and Stuart's ex), is about
to appear in person. She doesn't.

The question for the uninitiated remains, though: just what is this group's
particular appeal?

"It's because they're difficult to find out about in the conventional way,"
reckons 18-year-old Andrew Farley. "You hear the name mentioned around quite a lot
and it stands out as being unusual. And you think, 'That's strange, I've heard the
name but not their songs on the radio, why is that?' You can't just pick up The
Sun or The Mirror and find out what's going on. Well, before the Brits, this
is..."

David and Katrina, now of the group's record label Jeepster, but formerly humble
shop assistants at Vinyl Experience in London's Hanway Street, testify to the
musics strange incubatory effects. "We got given the '...Sinister' album by a rep
and filled in the feedback questionnaire giving it about five out of ten,"
confesses Katrina. "But then we kept going back to it and playing it again and
again until we had it on practically all the time. We kept ordering loads of
copies to foist on as many people as possible. And loads of tourists who came in
would go home with copies.

"Then we went to their Borderline gig and David, who'd been doing the Elastica
fanclub, went up to Stuart Murdoch and asked him if he could do their fanclub. He
said fine, so we started that - organising the picnics and stuff - and eventually
we joined Jeepster as it grew."

So, now that you're part of the Jeepster family, are you still fans?

"Well, Stuart and Isobel come to the office and afterwards we're going, 'Ooh, wow!
They were here! We spoke to them!' [laughs] Like on a real high..."

Such enthusiasm isn't rare. In fact it's common to find even more extreme
reactions on the Net. Here's 'Guy': "i just want to say how much i love Belle And
Sebastian, and how they possibly saved my life. At the time when i discovered
them, i was going through a hard time in life, having quite a few problems with
nobody to turn to. The beautiful and meaningful music they produce is a great
antidote to the world we live in, with its vulgarity and falseness. Belle And
Sebastian have shown me that life can be colourful and beautiful. They give me
hope and belief that things will get better. God bless you Belle And
Sebastian!!!!!!!"

As it edges towards midnight in New Cross surprising scenes are taking place on
the dancefloor. The dancier B&S tracks (meaning, er, 'Dirty Dream Number Two',
basically) segue into a rock-out section (including the likes of T Rex's
'Jeepster') which causes what appears to be red-hot boogie action among the
supposedly shrinking violet twee-kids.

As the throng starts sweating with communal joy, it's clear that other factors
over and above the love of the band itself bind this clan together. One unifying
characteristic, of course, is a shared feeling of shyness.

"Everyone is always rather reticent," says the evening's organiser and DJ, Joe
Egg. "I felt rather shy handing out the flyers for tonight. And a big city -
whether it's London or LA - can be a very lonely place, it's really hard to meet
people who think like you. So if you're a young person who's predisposed to the
Internet and likes the band, it's a good way of getting to actually meet
like-minded people face-to-face."

"It's really about people from all over the world who trust each other," adds
Katrina. "If you say, 'I want to come over to stay', you'll be put up. It's a
friends for life thing. If you say you're a Belle And Sebastian fan, people
presume that everything else is similar too."

"We're all very sad," adds David. "But we don't care!"

The band's famously taciturn habits do appear to have rubbed off onto their fans.
There's anything but unanimity even over the wisdom of tonight's fan convention,
with some Net postings fearing wallflowers-looking-lost scenes reminiscent of '80s
Smiths nights. Alistair, meanwhile, is not attending the Bowlie Weekender. "I just
don't like the idea of festivals," he says. "I'm not very social.' And, in
connection with this article, the Sinister mailing list founder, Paul Mitchell,
says he's "not sure whether I want it publicised so much as we're a very special
tidy little community!"

Such awkwardness hints at the whole cult's current precarious position. According
to Andy Parley, "It is a contradiction. You feel like you're part of a really
select, minority thing. But at the same time there's a lot of us now. It's like
anything, really, when it turns big."

Maybe this bubble-like community has become about as big as it can get without
bursting. There's already signs that a breakaway 'knew them in the
beginning/prefer their old stuff' movement is rearing its head and, assuming that
the group carries on widening its musical remit, those who think of Belle And
Sebastian as Their Group could feel increasingly marginalised by any forthcoming
Brits-enhanced success. Which, of course, only adds fittingly melancholic edge to
the night's valedictory celebrations.

That said, the cult's highpoint is still to arrive The Bowlie Weekender promises
to be a feast of chalet-based frolics. That is if everyone behaves themselves and
follows such tips as these from the official website: "Bring some pyjamas -
afterall, most of you are sharing your chalet with people you only loosely know,"
and "If you're driving, check the weather before you leave and make sure that you
stop off for short breaks during your journey." Above all, however, you should,
"Make sure you've booked the Monday off work so you won't get into trouble when
you don't turn up."

It would, after all, be the nice and thoughtful thing to do.

-- 

cheers

david

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                  david kitchen : jeepster recordings ltd
          http://www.jeepster.co.uk/ mailto:shop at jeepster.co.uk

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