Sinister: warlords of mars

[Dirty Vicar]

hello everyone, it's me again with the latest news from the Vicarage.

I've been listening to Kate Bush's first album "The Kick Inside" a lot
lately. It's a big bag of fun. We always do expressive dances to the opening
bars of the first track, which shows how artistic we are. Does anyone know
what other Kate Bush albums are worth listening to?

I don't know if any of you frequent the Jeepster messageboards (er, they're
not officially called the Jeepster messageboards anymore but the official
names don't trip off the tongue so readily). Lately all out war has broken
out there as it turned out that almost all of the registered users were
pseudonyms for two people. It makes any Sinister flamewar look very tame by
comparison. Once again friendly Sinister triumphs.

I've been reading one of the books I got for Christmas, "Dance of Days"
about the Washington DC punk scene. An amusing thing is I don't know the
music of that city at all, and have the vague idea it's all a bit turgid.
But the scene is interesting to read about. The people in it all sound
incredibly earnest... with their hardline straight-edge anti-drink
anti-drugs and anti-sex ideology they sound like they would be no fun at all
to hang out with. And they all take themselves incredibly seriously, and
don't allow any room for, well, *entertainment* in their music - it all has
to be about communicating some serious political message. Like, yawn. And
they hate disco music.

The Dirty Vicar likes disco music. There's nothing he likes more than
organising discos for the young people to shake their stuff at in the
vicarage. He likes when the young people shake their stuff.

I don't know if any of you live vaguely in the Dublin metropolitan area, but
a possible date for your calendar is March 23rd when there is going to a be
a Northern soul all-nighter in the TCD rowing club on Coyningham Road.
Northern Soul all-nighters sound like my cup of tea.

That "Careless Talks Costs Lives" magazine has been mentioned a few times.
I'll say one thing for it, it has a snappy title and that's going to help it
in destroying the traditional music press. Someone else mentioned that
Everett True writes for it (and possibly edits it, and stuff). They even
claimed that True was one of the best writers of the old Melody Maker before
it became rubbish.

Marxist Science and true exegesis of the Book of Tobit do not support this
proposition. Mr True tended to write about good bands, but he tended to
write about them in an annoying self-glorifying manner where his articles
where all about him, how great he was, and how people in popular bands were
his best friends. You would never pick up any useful information of or
impressions about the bands he wrote about, just the vague impression that
if True was writing about them they were probably good.

I never worked out whether True's journalism was all some kind of
complicated unfunny joke or whether he actually was a sad self-aggrandizing
loser who hasn't registered that music journos are less interesting than
musicians. But nevertheless, credit where it's due, he did write about some
good bands, and his "turn the train around" article about The Dirty Three
was one of the most (possibly unintentionally) funny things I have ever
read.

The actually good writers from the Melody Maker - Chris Roberts, Simon
Reynolds etc. are mostly writing for Uncut these days. Reynolds also writes
boring articles for The Wire.

In final news, I think the Church of Tobit is spreading its wings. A recent
issue of popular comic "Promethea" mentioned the Book of Tobit, and only the
other day I saw a novel in Waterstones based on Tobist themes. Sadly I don't
remember its title. Or author. But trust me, I'm not making it up. It's set
in Venice.

So I say unto ye - cleave unto Tobit and beware women beloved of demons.

Your pal,

The Dirty Vicar

PS oh and welcome to new friend Toy Stephen. The Dirty Vicar approves of
those who namecheck him.





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