Sinister: and you can't sing

[Dirty Vicar]

I've decided to send another mail in to Sinister from sunny Dublin.

I'm feeling a bit sulky about the way B&S took to hanging out with listees
and gig goers down in darkest England, but they didn't do the same when we
went over to see them in Scotland. They must have seen me coming or
something. But still, I have the idea it's better not to meet your idols.

Yesterday we went to see Magnetic Fields. They were supported by Tendertrap.
Tendertrap are Amelia Fletcher's latest band. Amelia looks almost exactly
like she did when I saw her in Barnstormers fronting Heavenly ten years ago.
Which is strange. The band sound basically like Marine Research of Heavenly,
with maybe a slightly greater interest in electronics.

The Magnetic Fields themselves were grate, as they say. Don't lots of
listees hate them? I think they're just inventing a Magfelds/B&S rivalry
because Stephin Merritt and Stuart Murdoch are the two greatest songwriters
of our times. It's a Beatles/Beach Boys thing. But I say, why have one when
you can have both?

Anyway, on this occasion Stephin Merritt was a bit poorly with some kind of
food poisoning he'd picked up in Scandinavia. So he was dosed up to the
gills on some kind of medicine and had to let Claudia Gonson sing a much
higher proportion of songs than normal. Which suited me, as I could drown in
that woman's voice.

For all that I love the Fields on record, live they are such a stronger
proposition. With just four of them on the stage they manage to create an
amazingly multilayered sound. I suppose a lot of this must be down to the
two ones who let their musical instruments do the talking.

Anyway, they played lots of lovely tunes, including some by the 6ths, with
Amelia Fletcher shyly coming back to sing the song she apparently does on
one of their albums.

Rener made a new friend who it somehow became apparent had kept going to
gigs to see the Mull Historical Society support someone, only to arrive late
and find the headliners already onstage. He then told her an amusing
anecdote about the time he met Isobel Campbell, but that's Rener's story so
I'll let her tell it.

Did you hear that Delia Derbyshire died? Did you ever hear of Delia
Derbyshire? She worked for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the 1960s and
performed the original music for "Doctor Who" using a range of tape loops
and oscillators and things. One thing that's funny about her if you ever see
old pictures of her is how much like a random lady member of B&S she looks.
See for yourself at http://www.deliaderbyshire.com/

This has gone on a bit, so now it will stop.

bless you all,

DV

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