Sinister: The squids are all right

[stevie troussé]

At ease, comrades

What ho! I was shocked to read an article in today's Guardian on the top 10
rock and roll hellraisers of all time, referring to a feature in this week's
Melody Maker (the kind of journalism that has made it the vital force in
British music it so obviously is), and find no reference to our beloved
oddball twangling-jack-and-jills. Wither Stu M's auto-destructive guitar
abuse in Dublin? or Sarah's alka-seltzer and haliborange binge at Bowlie? or
Mick Cooke's nude rampage through the streets of Edinburgh...?

Gah.

I was interested to see the return of Simon Reynolds to the sinister list,
courtesy of my learned Brockley correspondent. The essay is certainly
interesting, mostly - from my point of view - for illustrating how far his
vision of criticism has moved from a broadly subcultural-Hebdigean analysis
to the Barthesian formalist abdication of analysis he favours today. I think
he would do well to have a second look at it himself. Mr Reynolds did
actually list B&S as one of the most over-rated things of (was it?) 1998 on
his website, which I can't be bothered to look for the url of. More in
response to the doxa of indie-pop opinion than anything else I imagine.
Indeed, I think he's a subtle enough critic to appreciate that the
unclassifiable beauty of melody is just as radical as the most jouissant
code-jamming.

Ahem.

Mr Tony kindly mentioned the low-key launch on Thursday in London of a
fanzine I'm involved in. Loathe though I am to deluge Sinister with
self-publicity, might I ask people to point their tapetty-lightboxes in the
direction of www.papercuts.co.uk later this afternoon for fuller details. It
has also come to my attention that some people who had ordered previous
issues may not have received them because I am a lazy git. Rest assured that
I am also too lazy to have cashed cheques. If this is the case with you,
please email me at my swanky new email address: trousers at papercuts.co.uk and
I will apologise in a fashion so abject it is not becoming a man who just
noted grey hairs peeking through his stubble this weekend. And you will be
fully compensated with apes, ivory and peacocks.

You know, it has come to my attention that several of our old guard have
defected to a gothlist devoted to the new Al Stewart, called "Bat Wings". I
say we challenge them to a fight in the quad at first light, before the
deportment mistress is up and about.

As you were

Stevie Troussé

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