Sinister: new romantics

[ian]

oh...i did try and answer everything at once...honest..i'll shut up after
this one.

lesley:

>NO you silly monkey.  isobel does not give you stomach ache.  i've never
>taken st johns wort. all i know is it's sposedta make you fuzzy and happy.

well, sort of.  it made me manic too.  and almost euphoric if i drank at the
same time.  perhaps that fits the metaphor better.  i'll say nothing about
isobel being covered in a thin coating of gelatin and put in a plastic
container with a piece of cotton wool.
oh..too late.

>it probably doestn', but it's the thought that counts. and i CLEARLY said
>"or whatever" which, in that gen-x hipster moronic fashion, grants
automatic
>er, flexibility to whatever it qualifies, leaving you free to withdraw
>anything stupid you may have said or anything you have doubts about, or if
>you're just too SOFT to make a flat statement boldly.

right.  a clever conversational device which i shall endeavour to remember
:)

 anyway. isobel does
>not make sick.  it makes you feel fuzzy, like sitting out on a grassy hill
>and making daisy chains and drawing pictures of horses.    OR getting down
>to kinky love in a mirrored chevy van.  either one.


can i get the cd cheaper on the internet anywhere?  anybody know?  and how
much is the cassette?  i ask because i bought TBWTAS cd for 13 quid from
tower and then saw the tape for a fiver in hmv.  not that i'm tight-fisted
or anything :)

>someone said Hesse should be read.

oh, that would have been me again :)  and we have a fellow fan called justin
out there.  anybody else?

 i've only read uh DEMIAN, on
>recommendation of a pseudo-lady love of mine, but it was bloody amazing.
>bollocks.   it's totally fabulous.  that should be on our sinister reading
>club too.    it will blow your mind.

i want to be in the book club if it happens.  i haven't read demian, but
steppenwolf is one of the best books i've ever read.  the man's writing
style is amazing.

> i hear Hesse is lumped with the beat(off) generation, but i found nothing
in common >with bukowski orkerouac.  very spiritual.  or maybe he's supposed
to have inspired >the beats? well fuck the beats.  i'm sorry, but really.

i see no similarity between hesse and kerouac.  hesse definitely inspired
timothy leary.  which makes him quite a sound fellow in my book.

 Well i'm not saying belle and sebby are vapid.  but
>these days--so much emphasis on cmoputers, and having messages, and
>conveying the brutality and nature of society.  there's comment in their
>music certainly, but overall it just throws aside any seeking to be
"modern"
>or avant-garde, or shocking.  reactionary? i dont know.

no, i don't think they're reactionary.  the insistence on a melody shouldn't
be labelled as reactionary.  or if it is, only in the sense that writing
books in a recognisable language is reactionary.  although they don't widen
the scope of what can be defined as "music", and they aren't pushing back
generic barriers (which frankly is a load of bollocks anyway..i mean "trip
hop" indeed..."a fusion of rap, dance, jazz, whatever label you like to
throw at it"...well, what exactly did that achieve then?) they're doing what
they do damn well, without following any prescribed musical fashion.

to me, there's only so far the avant garde can go.  we've had yoko screaming
her way through "plastic ono band" (twenty years ago)....we've had trent
reznor and his clicking noises and scrapey sounds that he says constitute
music (and i'm not denying the man's ability) and they're probably right.
in the same way that manzoni canning his own shit and selling it as "art"
was right.  but they've made the point.  after that, to a large extent,
you're just going to be treading the paths of people before you.  although
there's nothing wrong in that.  bjork seems to manage it without sounding
hackneyed, but she's not as ground breakingly original as people like to
paint her.
to quote chumbawamba in their pre-sell-out days
"pour me another double cliche
you can't write a song that's never been sung"

maybe that's a bit defeatist.  although its an excellent excuse for
sampling.  but eventually you have to go back to music for music's
sake...not to say that its got to vanish up its own arse...the swaggering
anthems of the manics spring to mind ("yeah...its about the spanish civil
war...how noone cared"  really?  i can't imagine why)  that would be
reactionary.  and its worrying that the likes of catatonia, stereophonics
and the manics are being pushed as some sort of example of innovative music
with their made-for-stadium rock with occasionally observant lyrics.

wow...i'm beginning to sound like i've vanished up my own arse,  what i was
really trying to say is that belle and sebastian seem to be exploring their
own way within an established framework.  they're not posturing as musical
revolutionaries, but so often it seems that the musical revolutionaries were
only posturing all along (remember the sex pistols' reunion?).

what  they are doing is turning out songs that connect with people.  they
are one of the few bands that can engage my mind whilst making me feel
smiley inside.  and just by doing so they're making a statement.  add to
this the fact that they make music for people who wobble somewhere between
non-conformity and extinction (speaking solely for myself, of course :) )
and they're serving far more of a social purpose than any new romantic ever
did.  i mean, could duran duran really have staked a claim to being anything
other than a bunch of posturing tossers?

but maybe you're all thinking the same thing about me.  and i have rambled
somewhat and gone WAY off my original intention for this email.  so i'll
just go and have that cup of tea now and shut my face :)

ian

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