Sinister: And I feel like I'm dying from mining for Cole

[P F]

I wonder why Professor Cook thinks that his post will

>>>probably bore most of you stiffless

?

I thought it fascinating, as I usually do re. what he has to say, except 
when he's very drunk, when I only find it interesting, cos I can't seem to 
open my ears. Or swallow properly.

He said:

>>>The delectable Mr PF had to say (why, heaven above only knows):

It's nice to be delectable, but I wish to point out that my name is not 'Mr 
PF'. It's 'PF', or possibly 'pinefox'. Orange-Juicy Lucy A once called me 
'the pinefox', a definite article which I really enjoyed. But there has 
never been a 'Mr' involved. 'Mr' is not, as it happens, my title.

Anyway, Ally96 went on:

>>>Easy Pieces - Lloyd Cole and The Commotions, 1985
Raintown - Deacon Blue, 1987
Lloyd Cole (X) - Lloyd Cole, 1990

>>It seems fitting to start, as is usually best, at the beginning. And in 
>>The Beginning there was 'Rattlesnakes'. Now let's not beat about the 
>>proverbial here, this was, still is and ever will be one of the single 
>>most perfect incarnations of The Pop Record ever to have graced that 
>>strange, contradictory decade known as the 1980s. Yes, standing with 'You 
>>can't hide your love..', 'Murmur', 'Queen is Dead', and all the ones I 
>>can't remember or haven't heard yet. Yes! Soaring and swooping and 
>>whispering in the shadows and hollering from the rooftops "why can't it be 
>>like this all the time?!".

I'm with you so far, though inevitably unconvinced by the 'You Can't Hide 
Your Love', with or without capitals (of Scotland). Of *course* I'm 
unconvinced: I've never heard the thing.

>>>And 'Easy Pieces' is yer lot, so to speak.
Not a lot, but you might like it. I do, kind of. Yes, it's dull in
parts, yes, it doesn't quite have the same youthful charm as it's
predescessor, but, well,

>>it is what it is.

That clause is below your usual standard, Cook. I mean, can you tell me 
about anything that is not what it is? Possibly Steady Mike could, via an 
unscrupulous manipulation of evidence from the Quantum Fizzy Drink world, 
but he's not here to protect you now.

>>Reasonable, if not triumphant

On this I agree. What about 'Brand New Friend'? That strikes me as a rather 
disappointing, or unrealized, track. But I know a fanzine editor with a big 
soft spot for 'Why I Love Country Music'. And I like the guitar intro to 
'Grace' and the outro to 'Pretty Gone'. And 'Minor Character'! The return of 
the swooping strings from 'Rattlesnakes'! Fabulously cold lines like 'She 
said she'd throw herself off a bridge', and 'She telephoned to say that 
she'd cut her wrists'! Tossed off with the usual Cole langour - or are they? 
Come to think of it, maybe he gets worked up here. What do you kids think?

The other thing about these early Lloyd Cole strings is that they are the 
model - the model? - for the strings on 'FYHCYWLAP'. I mean 'Woman's Realm' 
and 'Too Much Love' and, well, 'The Model', specifically - among the tracks' 
most, um, delectable features is the Lloydishness of the strings.


Ally96 then moved on to Deacon Blue:

>>It's just...well, the songs are often there, I mean you
can see them, God knows you can almost feel then, and then suddenly
they're lost forever under blankets of rubbish production, crap guitar
parts and Lorraine MacIntosh's incessant wailing. Alright, so it's not
that bad really, I mean there are high points (Dignity of course, The
Very Thing) and the cover's lovely, a cloudy Dundee (one assumes), but
the whole thing just doesn't quite work for me.

The cover is lovely. The songs are, sometimes, there. Production, maybe I 
agree. Guitars, maybe. But are you sure it's right thus to diss McIntosh? I 
think she was an asset. She was a better singer than Ricky Ross, as she 
proved on their cover of 'Are You There With Another Girl?' - which I think 
was released almost exactly 10 years ago (c. September 1990) and got to no 4 
or no 2 - the Bacharach / David ep, I mean, was their biggest UK hit.

I don't agree, either, that 'Dignity' is a high point. I think the high 
points are:

Born In A Storm (brief)

Raintown (urgent verse - shame about the chorus, maybe. But I like the line 
'You're [or is it 'I'm'?] down here, working on some dumb show')

He Looks Like Spencer Tracy Now (OK)

Chocolate Girl (excellent, and trés 80s. That sounds a bit like 'Trezeguet', 
doesn't it? As in

"TrezeGUEEEETT!!!!!!!!!")


Ally96 recovered from these objections, which he knew were coming, and 
continued:

>>>Finally, we come to the boy Cole's first solo outing, all black leather 
>>>and gruff sleeve with Bad Cowboy stubble. Inside though, we find some 
>>>soft centres (leopards and spots, eh?). The single 'No Blue Skies' is 
>>>possibly the finest thing here, as Lloyd accuses "Baby you're too well 
>>>read". It seems self-depreciation is the new black. Elsewhere 'Loveless' 
>>>is gorgeous ("why do you say you love me/when you don't?"), and 
>>>'Undressed' is pleading and pretty wonderful. It doesn't quite sustain 
>>>itself over 13 tracks though, in fact the last 3 could have been omitted 
>>>without too much fuss from me, but it's all about compromises, folks, and 
>>>I'll happily take the rough with the smooth. Two adjectives which can be 
>>>applied to Lloyd Cole in almost equal measure. Long may he keep slowing 
>>>down.


I couldn't have put it better myself.

Have you reflected on how LC *did* slow down with this LP? In the sense that 
his first 3 LPs started with medium-to-fast songs, whereas this one starts 
with a (magnificent and indispensable) slow cruiser?

But I disagree with the judgment of the last trio of tracks. If I remember 
rightly they are:

I Hate To See You Baby Doing That Stuff // which is a fun, dumb rocker with 
French words, laughter and screaming Quine axe;

Waterline // which is a very straightforward Dylan rip-off, but excellent, I 
think;

and

Mercy/Killing // which is long, heavy and menacing - a bit like Alasdair 
Cook - and ends startlingly - again a bit like him.

On the other hand (again), it's true that No Blue Skies, Loveless and 
Undressed are all marvellous, in their different ways. At the end of the 
day, I think this is one of the great pop records ever, and even better than 
Rattlesnakes. I seem to have said this before somewhere.


It is the last day of summer, by my reckoning. It is thus nine years to the 
day since I finished reading Ulysses for the first time. I sure hope I 
didn't *entirely* waste them.



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