Sinister: THIS IS HAPPENING WITH YOUR PERMISSION

[John Koliopanos]

I just wanted to quote this bit from the Shinkansen newsletter. For no
particular reason actually, I just thought it might be basis for
creative debate. Or frenzy. I love both . . .

 John x


THIS IS HAPPENING WITH YOUR PERMISSION



I just wanted to quote this bit from the Jeepster newsletter:

... Weathershow will be released as an extremely limited 2000 copies
only 7"... our mail-order shop will be taking advance orders, but to
make it fair it will be on a first-come-first-served basis, and for this
reason we're only taking credit-card orders and will not be guaranteeing
that anyone will get a copy. UK price (including VAT and postage), £2.75
plus postage plus VAT = £4.41...
If only all labels treated their fans so well.

Oh, I know this is nothing to do with me, it just... ANNOYS me, because
I suspect loads of you will be queueing up at Rough Trade on Monday
morning to get one of their limited allocation, when what you should be
doing is writing to Jeepster to ask why exactly a record for which there
is obviously a huge demand is being limited to so few copies, or writing
to the band to ask them WHY THEY ALLOW IT. Basically, at the risk of
sounding like a fanzine from 10 years ago - ah yes, those rosy-tinged
pre-Blair days when we actually believed politics could truly mean
something, and everyone agreed that the 12" single was the wickedest
embodiment of Capitalist evil ever devised - DEMAND MORE. Or at least
those of you who don't have a credit-card and don't live in a town with
a decent record shop could try demanding more. This is NOT, to misquote
Huggy Bear, the sound of a revolution. And I want it to be. I want
everything to be.

This isn't a dig at B&S especially... I'm just using them because it's
such a blatant example of bands/labels abusing their fanbase in order to
further careers, and because I know that lots of people reading this
will also be logging into the B&S/Jeepster websites. Obviously labels
have been hyping bands by using limited-editions to contrive a buzz and
engineer myth and mystique for ages - yes, even before Steve Lamacq put
out the first Elastica single on Deceptive as a 1000 pressing and then
played it to death on his show (whoops, there goes our Radio 1
airplay...) - I've just always lived in this weird dreamland where
decent bands who believe in Art and Politics rather than Fame and
Fortune wouldn't actually ALLOW it. The inflated price and credit-card
stuff is just the icing on the cake, and made me smile. (And - before I
get accused of hypocrisy - records being allowed to sell-out once the
initial demand has faded, or once they're incredibly old, is obviously
completely different from new records being deleted while demand is
still high - effectively even before release.)

That said... I do sometimes find myself questioning the cheery masochism
of most B&S fans... I mean, obviously Sarah Records' success was
achieved entirely by us targeting the weird and inadequate (no offence),
and making them believe they had something to live for, even if it was
only a new Boyracer badge or Field Mice poster, so I should be used to
it, but B&S fans seem to take it to scary new heights... and I was
musing on this the other day when it suddenly dawned on me that B&S
aren't a pop-group at all, but a vast ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT, an
investigation into human suffering. It goes something like this:

Level 1: perform a concert at the Union Chapel, making your fans sit on
hard wooden pews for 20 minutes between numbers while you to decide
which song to play next. Rather than send you hate-mail explaining the
concept of a set-list, however, they simply demand an encore, and more
pain. Therefore, increase the suffering to Level 2...

Level 2: come on late at the Shepherd's Bush Empire and then play so
incredibly quietly that no-one can hear you. Rather than demanding their
money back, however, your fans merely tell the few hecklers present to
shush, because they're trying to work out whether it's Stuart or Isobel
who's singing. So, ratch up the suffering another notch, to Level 3...

Level 3: cancel your Washington gig at short notice due to one band
member (out of, um, 37) being poorly. However; rather than being
confronted by irate fans screaming But I've flown here specially all the
way from Minneapolis!!!, you just get sent cakes with Get well soon
Isobel written in pink icing and letters telling you how brave your
decision was. So, in desperation, you push the suffering up into almost
unbearable realms... Level 4... surely they have to break soon???

Level 4: tell all your fans to assemble on the dullest, most desolate
stretch of beach Britain has to offer on a cold weekend in April, with
only the strange distant glow of Dungeness nuclear power-station to warm
them...

Suddenly... it all falls into place, doesn't it??? Even now, Stuart
Murdoch is dusting off his clipboard and readying himself to take up
position behind a tree - sorry, the tree - to note down how many will
comply before he reports back to the Jeepster labs...

Camber's a weird and scary place, you know, even without Sleater-Kinney
wailing at you. If I were you, I'd sneak off and spend the afternoon in
Rye, which has some nice little tea-shops, or walk along the coast to
Dungeness to have a look at the power-station and Derek Jarman's cottage
and garden (as in the film). Actually, the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch
railway should be running by then, too, I think, after its winter break,
so you can go on that. It's got to be better than watching Mercury Rev
do a 20 minute prog-rock version of the theme to Hi-de-hi, surely???

Ah, I feel better now. And not a word about The Brits! (But, please, no
more nonsense about not having anything to do with the music-industry
and songs about not having dinner with Seymour Stein, and getting loads
of press & publicity on the back of refusing to do loads of press &
publicity, and not wanting your photos taken unless it's Isobel).

And please please please note that none of the above has anything to do
with the music. Just because the first two Orchids albums are ten times
better than bloody Tigermilk doesn't mean we should forever be harking
back to a past that nobody remembers anyway. (Actually, that said, we've
recently started getting lots of people asking about The Orchids,
wanting to know what they're up to these days... to which I can only
snort and say, in the words of Joni Mitchell, oh don't it always seem to
go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone... they pave
paradise and put up a parking-lot. Sigh. Oh, the answer is "not much",
by the way... two of them got married... not to each other... and the
rest... don't know... I heard a rumour that Chris and James had
concreted over a small area just off Sauchiehall Street and were now
running it as an NCP franchise, but that could just be bar talk.)

Leave me alone, I've got a cold.

Ken Livingstone for mayor. Of everywhere.


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