Sinister: CMJ's "Letter to B&S"

Walkn10 at xxx.com Walkn10 at xxx.com
Tue Jun 20 00:15:43 BST 2000


I opened up the July edition of CMJ Music Monthly, with the Deftones on the 
cover, and found a pretty funny little article on page 13 entitled...

Ring My Belle: An Open Letter to Belle and Sebastian

You may be known for lilting tunes about S&M and Bible Studies (and your 
moping skills rival the Cure at Christmas), but Stuart, Isobel, you have to 
admit it: Fascinating interviews aren't your forte, and you don't grant 
terribly many.  Still, your new album Fold Your Hands Child You Walk Like a 
Peasant (Matador) is filled with plenty of intrigue, sexual and otherwise.  
So if you're out there, we have a few questions for you.

1) Which members of the band have slept with which other members - or perhaps 
it would be easier to ask which members haven't slept with each other?  Which 
members of the band want to sleep with others, but haven't?  Is this album 
your "Rumours"?

2) Your band has inspired more original poetry and fiction that any band 
since, maybe, The Smiths.  What do you do to live down the shame?

3) For that matter, your band has been compared to The Smiths an awful lot.  
Could you list the top five reasons why Belle & Sebastian is not, in fact, 
The Smiths?

4) At least two songs on Fold Your Hands Child - "The Wrong Girl" and "The 
Chalet Lines" - allude to twisted sexual scenarios at the Bowlie Weekender, 
the festival you headlined last year at a seaside resort in the South of 
England.  How much of the actual twisted sex that went on there were you 
privy to?

5) Is the Lisa who "learned alot from putting on a blindfold when she knew 
she had been bad" in "The Model" the same Lisa from "Like Dylan In the 
Movies" on If You're Feeling Sinister?  What's she been up to in the 
meantime?  Is she cute?  Does she like music journalists?

6) How exactly does a peasant walk?

-------------------------------------

A little smug, but still pretty funny.  CMJ has never been able to suss out 
whether they love or loathe the band, evidenced by the fact that their review 
of the new album (in the same issue) makes no fucking sense in the least.  
I'd type that up too, but its not even coherent.
Seriously though, CMJ has turned very mainstream in a very short time, with 
former cover stars Guided by Voices, Yo La Tengo, the Lemonheads and Sonic 
Youth being very quickly replaced with issues blaring the likes of Kid Rock, 
Rage Against the Machine, Buckcherry, Marilyn Manson and, most disgustingly, 
Limp Bizkit.  It still has its indie segments, but there's a huge disaparity 
between the College Playlist bands in the back of the mag and the actual 
stars who grace its front (not one of its last 6 cover stars has even cracked 
its own fucking list, the CMJ Top 75).  
If you're reading this Mick, responses to the above are to be directed to 
Douglas Wolk at monthly at cmj.com
To celebrate my first weekend off in fucking forever, the NASCAR race was 
rained out and I got a three-day migraine.  You gotta love livin' baby


Steve C.

"That the public might become so discouraged that it would abandon the War 
impressed McClellan not at all.  With him the only the question was when the 
professionals would be ready to start the game."


*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

"Which Paul?" "BLAH!"

visit http://callowkids.tripod.com or your crush will hate you forever

Call WRNR 103.1 at (410) 269-1031 and request Callow's "Lessons in Shut-eye" 
or you will have bad luck...forever or something.
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