Sinister: Sinister?

[Nick Dastoor]

I don't seem to have posted much recently.  I spend all my time eating
instead.  But I still lost weigh over Christmas.

Anyway, I wouldn't like anyone to think I was dead, as for a start my
list crushes would start getting awkward questions from the police.

lesleyjo has taken to quoting this stolen piece of Stuart Murdoch in
her sig file:
  
> "I've just been shining this apple, and it looks so delicious, but 
> I've changed my mind. . .do you want to share it?"

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't find this whole incident
cute at all. In fact it makes me feel kind of queasy.  Would the Snow
White story have worked so well with a banana?

Here's another press piece from a while ago.  The Evening Standard is
the London local paper, not renowned for it's pop coverage, but I
quite liked this.  Well it's all right, anyway.  I've never heard the
Blue Peter story before - is it true?

Nicholas xxx

04 Dec 1998 Evening Standard 

The Band That Wants To Be Left Alone: They've been described as 'fey'
with annoying regularity. But there's more than winsomeness to Belle
and Sebastian, discovers
 
By ZOE WILLIAMS

HERE are some regional stereotypes: Liverpudlians always try to do
harmonies without sounding too much like the Beatles; the Welsh are
fond of funny twangy instruments and big orchestral sweeps; the Scots
like to strum in a vigorous, rough-hewn, lo-fi way, and break their
instruments at the end; Bristol always throws up genres ending in the
word 'hop'. There, see how handy that was? It saves you listening to
about 27 albums of the past year alone, freeing up 1,215 minutes (dig
my maths!) for sleeping and having baths.

However, the eternally awkward and contrary Scots are quietly
wriggling out of their particular pigeonhole. Why, just this year
they've turned out Mogwai (not rough-hewn at all), Arab Strap (far too
cute ever to growl, or make any other lo-fi noises) and, crucially,
Belle and Sebastian, the most impossibly winsome, appealing,
melody-led eight-piece that ever did be. The eight of them met,
vaguely, at some arty college or other in Glasgow in 1995, but they're
no Pulp - they didn't spend 12 years playing in pubs before anyone got
to like them.

They're not fuelled by some overarching passion to make it
particularly massive. In their first 18 months as an outfit, they
played no more than 18 gigs, which is rather refreshing, now that
common practice is to do the gig circuit until the point of nervous
exhaustion.

They don't really have much dash to them - everything is taken at
pootling pace. They release their next single, This Is Just Another
Modern Rock Song, on Monday, which is just typical. You can almost
hear the conversation - 'I've got a great idea! Why don't we release a
totally unChristmasy song just before Christmas, then we can guarantee
that nobody will buy it, and they'll all just leave us alone.' It's a
marvellous little song with a proper tune, even while the lyrics
completely undermine the whole business ('This is just another modern
rock song/This is just a sorry lament/ We're four boys in corduroys/
We're not terrific but we're competent'). The whole EP is marvellous,
actually, as was the album before it, which is why Belle and Sebastian
are never going to be greeted with the indifference they genuinely
prefer.

Ever since they were first signed in 1996, the band have been
relentlessly publicity shy. For a long time, they wouldn't even put
out publicity shots of themselves, choosing instead to send snapshots
of their mates, lying in the middle of the road and suchlike. Lead
singer and prolific songwriter Stuart Murdoch doesn't want to talk
about it, really, and most interviewing duty falls to Richard, the
drummer, who explains the camera-shy angle thus: 'We're not trying to
be difficult. We just thought that people who really liked the music
would buy the album anyway, regardless of whether or not we looked
ugly enough to scare the kids away from the fireplace.' (A strange
Scottish saying, presumably.) Belle and Sebastian have been called fey
more often than Noel's been called a Gallagher, but it's a misleading
term, which brings to mind much chiffon and tragedy and cooing,
art-school nonsense.

According to Richard, at least, they're all much more straightforward
than that. They don't have some grand plan to keep themselves pure and
underground in the face of (yikes!) commercial or critical acclaim.
They just have a big meeting every now and again, and if one of them
says they're not comfortable with something, whether it's a tour or a
release or a cappuccino, they just don't bother.

Nor do they actively avoid publicity - hell, this is the outfit who
bombarded Blue Peter with sincere requests to play on their show, and
just got laughed at. They're not holed up in Glasgow ensconced in some
creative idyll, playing recorders and making headwear out of twigs and
flowers. They're just eight people, some of whom live together, some
of whom don't, some of whom like the pub, some of whom are a bit more
subdued, who happen to make good songs together.

Live sets, although improved since the very first in 1996 when they
'flapped about like idiots and made a hellish, awful mess', have
always been a bit sham-bolic. They also sell out within hours of going
on sale. People travel hundreds of miles to see them - in America,
thousands. But we needn't equate a cult following with deliberate
kookiness. As far as I can make out, they're just a regular gang with
an unexpected dollop of talent. And, to come over all Barence Norman,
why not?
 
Evening Standard
Page 35
Copyright (C) Associated Newspapers Ltd,1993-1997




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