Sinister: you have nothing to live up to, you have nothing to live down

[ian]

firstly, sam walton... it isn't acceptable to tell us you're going to be on
the TELEVISION and then not tell us when we can tune in and watch it...
details please!

hannah, and anyone else who cares,  there was a sinister bowlie list run
last year.  run by mr daf. moore.  perhaps he will advertise it this year?
i'll leave that up to him.

right, on with the usual waffle.  some of it is actually about b&s, yknow..

----------

the sinister void is legendary.  a great, gaping black hole somewhere to the
south of aberdeen, it swallows up all the replies you HOPED you'd get to
your post.*

it has been a hungry beastie of late, i'm sure.  depressed at the number of
people hitting 'delete' one line into most of my posts, i decided to seek
advice.  thankfully, it was freely available.  but i didn't ask the man who
stands on the bull ring bridge and shouts about jesus.  his advice is
usually 'cleanse yourself of your sins' and it would take a fucking HUGE bar
of soap to do that.

instead, i found a nice man in birmingham rag market.  he sold me a magic
mirror.  for just 2 squids, AND he threw in a free plastic bag.

apparently, all one needs to do is ask the mirror a question.  in rhyme, if
possible.  i tried:

mirror, mirror, on the sofa
how do i get a reply to a post on sinista?

nothing, for ages.  vowing to take it back to the thieving bastard who
charged me 2 POUNDS for it, i went to make myself a cup of tea.  and dropped
it, when i came back to hear:

'ian, if you're not going to challenge me, i'm not going to put myself out
to reply in rhyme.  especially given the paucity of your effort.  wordsworth
you aint.  in fact, your lyrical construction would make even sylvia plath
shudder.
anyway, as you so tiresomely asked about an internet list, i'll answer you.

no. 1 write a sensible post.  don't pretend to be a god, a nun, or an
hip-swingy, arm-wavey maracca shakey type of pop star.  don't talk about the
religious implications of squiggles you found on your keyboard.  don't
pretend you've been receiving death-threats from archel playforth, when it
was she who had to take out a restraining order on YOU........ don't... oh
well, you get my drift.

no. 2.  its a music list.  say something about music.

no. 3 try not to drift off at a tangent and start spouting pornography'

frigging hell.  magic mirror, indeed... that piece of junk is going back in
the morning.

write something about music?  what sort of crazy idea is that?

but, looking at the recent sigur ros thread on sinister (bloody hell...
'thread', 'sinister'...) it would seem to be correct.  and, weirdly, those
posts were interesing to read too.

who would have thought it??

write something about music..

god, that's a challenge...

music, music, music...

well, music,...errr....its nice, isn't it?  madonna thinks it makes the
people come together.
which is always a good trick.  at least one of you doesn't vanish off to the
bathroom to grab some tissue while the other one lies there feeling
abandoned and pissed off...

(number 3.. try not to drift off at a tangent and start spouting pornograpy.

bugger)

can madonna's opinion be trusted?  this is the woman who once sang a song
about saying farewell to a PIE.  also, she's shagging guy ritchie which
isn't a good sign.
let's pretend, for the purposes of this post, that she doesn't exist.
--------------------

'music'...too broad a subject, maybe...let's be more specific.

'belle and sebastian have become utter pish'.

i suspect the person who typed this is still reading the archives, looking
for some controversy he might have stirred up, so i won't mention his name.

utter pish?
i looked up 'pish' in the dictionary.  it said 'like piss, but scottish'.
oh.
well, some people think piss is great.  the woman in the hippy shop in
moseley told me i should drink my own, three times a day.  but then she does
tend to talk crap.

belle and sebastian = piss...

hmm..

clearly that isn't true.  piss is yellow.  belle and sebastian are not.
case closed.

then again....
maybe its time to say it..... i thought 'storytelling' sounded
half-developed, like a band chucking out something for their fans, and
saying 'will this do?'.  i've been disappointed by their recent live
performances.  i think its sad that isobel left, (although at the time i
thought it was good, because when you're on stage you really shouldn't have
someone at the front, yawning throughout for all the audience to see,
because if you can't even be excited about your own music, how can you
expect other people to be?)

err...where was i...oh yes... but now... i think its sad ....about isobel's
departure...
if struan was the brain of b&s, isobel seemed like the heart, at least to
begin with, in those glory days and crazy crazy nights..

ZESE ARE CRAAZZY CRAZZY CRAAAZZY CRRAZZZZY NIGHTS
ZESE ARE CRAZZZZY CRAAAZZY CRAZZZZY CRAAAZZZY NIGHTS

oops... i'm sorry.  i don't know what came over me.
(number three... don't go off at a tangent, and start spouting pornography)

err... where was i?  oh yes, isobel...the heart.  but i think, if you'll let
me
stretch my metaphor, the heart was broken.  are they now a band without a
heart?  or has the jackson transplant been successful?  either way, there's
no denying they've changed.  no matter how much struan protests he hasn't
('how could i?'  more easily than you think, dear.)

would i join a b&s mailing list now?  yeah, why the hell not?  they're not
my favourite band any more, but they're still...yknow...okay
and if that isn't damning them with faint praise, i don't know what is.

would i vote for them, as suggested by michael ashbridge, in peelie's
festive fifty?
abserlutely no way.. in a year when beth gibbons has released 'mysteries',
a song so beautiful, it should be put on display and people should be FORCED
to go up to it, and lick it..., when jad fair and teenage
fanclub released the ridiculously infectious 'near to you' and where the
cheeky girls have released the deceptively understated 'we are the cheeky
girls' (watch this pair- gay icons in the making..) it really wouldn't be
right to vote for 'i'm waking up to us'.

(plus, i think the last b&s single came out in 2001.  which is a good reason
not to vote for it.)

but i'm looking forward to the peel acres show.  especially them (err...
this is going to sound exceptionally twee, but RAH for tweeness) singing
carols.  their version of 'oh come, oh come emmanuel' was my favourite track
on that xfm christmas album that came out a couple of years back..  err...
except isobel sang on it.  and she can't do that any more.

bugger.



the petition to bring her back starts here.  i'm going to throw away all
those copies of the last petition, the one to get rid of her.  i really miss
her yawney doe-eyed heavy-breathey ways.  (not enough to buy a gentle waves
album, don't be silly).
  if they got pigeonholed as 'twee'.. well, i never thought that was a
particularly bad thing.  i always liked their refusal to be hard in the face
of the world.  that was one of the things that set them apart from their
contemporaries.  that was one of the things i held up to be admired when
people started their 'the smiths were much better' rants.  i've always been
a romantic fool.  and i like my musicians the same way.

i saw a boy who was walking through selly oak carrying a big teddy bear, and
wearing a parka yesterday.  he looked so pleasingly twee that i wanted to
run up and hug him.  there was i time, way back in 1999.. when the first
bowlie occurred, and people came from ALL OVER THE GLOBE to the special
belle and sebastian festival, that it seemed like that sort of softness
could RULE THE WORLD.

or at least find its way into popular culture for a bit, and produce a
generation of softies.

i wish it had done so.

a look at the line up for this years bowlie shows what really happened.
apparently, according to the web site some of the chalets have started to
sell out.  i can only assume that this is a LIE.  but perhaps i should
accept that its true, and that the likes of wevie stunder are the way
forward.. no more tweeness, any more.

but i still want to go, because of what it once was, not what it is now.
hang out with a bunch of softies (because most of you are, whether you admit
it or not) and sit on the beach.  sod the bands, dream of a gentler world.
one where laughing groups of over-aged 'boys' and 'girls' skip up the beach
together, holding hands, and swinging their 'hello kitty' pencil cases.

it still could happen.
-----------------------------------------


number four, said the mirror, name your post after an obscure indie song.
maybe even make a reference to it in your post....

err... emma's house is empty, so why do i call it emma's house

done

xx

ian

* of course, it isn't a black hole.  a void cannot, by definition, be a
colour.  so let's just say that its very, very dark.**

** err...actually, IS black a colour?  somebody once told me that it wasn't.
but i think they were INSANE.  i have a black jumper, and it certainly SEEMS
to be a colour, but perhaps i'm deceiving myself.

-------------------------------------
at least
morrissey observes a considered silence and spares us all from him being a
bloody pansy.

anon
-------------------------------------



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