Sinister: Pure art is borne of epiphany?

[David Howie]

Forgive the subject line; or, rather, its author.  Mediocrity: the glue that 
binds us all or the wall that serves to highlight how fast the wind blows?  
I guess this would be a fitting time for THAT Woody Guthrie quote:

"The world is filled with people who are no longer needed - and who try to 
make slaves of all of us - and they have their music and we have ours - 
Theirs, the wasted songs of a superstitious nightmare - and without their 
musical and ideological miscarriages to compare our Song of Freedom to, we'd 
not have any opposite to compare music with - and like the drifting wind, 
hitting against no obstacle, we'd never knows it's (sic) speed, it's (sic) 
power."

Well, that about sums it up.  No need for me to prattle on at inordinate 
length.  So, mediocrity: not such a bad thing after all.  As for Shed Seven: 
they shoot horse, don't they?  Well, I wish they'd hurry up.  I'm not sure 
that Panic is actually an anti-disco song (despite the lyric "burn down the 
disco").  I always listened to it as an "explicit denunciation of black 
pop".  In tandem with a handful of provocative Moz quotes, the brouhaha laid 
the track that led to the 'racist' accusations around 1992's Your Arsenal 
(culminating in Tjinder Singh burning a Moz poster: bastard).  It's just a 
great decrying of the banality of the '80's mainstream.  According to legend 
it was inspired by the rather surreal juxtaposition, on Radio 1, of news of 
the meltdown at Chernobyl followed by Wham!'s I'm Your Man.  Marr:  "I do 
remember being in the kitchen with Morrisey [great how he doesn't call him 
Stephen] and Wham! coming on the radio and then just completely dissing it - 
and within a week we had that song."

Mediocrity = popularity.  To buttress this assertion by way of example: Gray 
David, Toploader, Starsailor, Bridgett Jones' Diary [film and book], Captain 
Correlli's Mandolin, Stereophonics.  The fact that "Mediocrity = popularity" 
has a little to do with the concept "lowest common denominator".  Take the 
recent example at Glasgow University where a distinguished intellectual 
[some might say Scotland's leading author; I wouldn't] was beaten by a 
two-bit comic with the catchphrase "Gonnae no' dae that".  The case for the 
prosecution rests.

The Heller/Shed 7 comparison is apt.  I know I'd like to thrust… Er, ahem.

I'd rather cut open my scrotum and rub live bees into the wound than go and 
see Feeder.  Your description of Feeder was nothing short of altruistic.  
(Hefner are pretty good live, though.  Pretty hard to beat: though Neal 
Casal gave them a good fight.  Oh yeh, and so did Belle & Sebastian. :-)

On a scale of 1 to pish-poor-awful.  1 being the least pish-poor-awful and 
pish-poor-awful being the most pish-poor-awful.  I reckon I'd have to say 
Feeder are about 9.  Y'know.  Pretty high.

And in conclusion to echo Danny:

"Anyway, is there going to be some sort of meet before the B&S gigs at 
Glasgow, I
remember the idea of a Kelvingrove picnic being banded about, so what was
eventually decided?"

And, the same applies for me "Sorry for annoying people with my rant" :-(

David.

PS Just a little note on Disco; it's an unfairly maligned genre of music, 
y'know.  Donna Summer's I Feel Love.  Ah mean, c'mon.  "It was 
unprecedented.  No verse, no chorus, just Summer's purring mantra set over 
endless, oscillating, undulating, repetitive sequencer-driven beats."

PPS That's my fifteen minutes.  Anybody care to debate?  Go on, you know you 
want to.  I've never actually had an argument/convo with anyone on Sinister. 
  I always shy away from real discussion.


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