Sinister: more *v*nt g*rd* wallpaper

[Kieran Devaney]

Dear Sinister,

This morning when I got into the shower it was 9am, when I left the shower 
it was 8:45am. I know what you’re thinking – that’s a really long shower! 
But seriously, far from being some kind of Tardis (half the time the showers 
here aren’t even decent enough to transport me to cleanliness, let alone 
elsewhere) or similar time travelling device, the showers were not to blame 
for my temporal shift, and neither was I. But don’t worry, I’m not about to 
rewrite the lyrics to a popular Belles tune and refit them to the 
problematic experience of the onset of Daylight Savings Time (although – La 
Pastie de la BST - no). You see, every week here there’s a pub quiz, and I’m 
usually quite good on the music questions, I take part just to be sociable 
(you might like to put that into inverted commas) you understand – but a 
couple of weeks ago one of the questions was ‘Who was the original guitarist 
with the group Suede?’ Now I thought that pretty much everyone knew that 
Justine Frishmann had been in Suede very early on, playing guitar, before 
she departed to form Elastica. You might say that Justine was Suede’s 
original guitarist. Put that down. But apparently not – not knowing their 
pop, the writers of the quiz thought that boring old Bernard Butler was 
correct. This is what I have to put up with. Worse still, the people I was 
with took it as fact that *I* was wrong – think outside of the box, guys, 
think outside of the box.

Speaking of which, where does irony start and finish? It’s not that 
important actually. Cliff Richard’s ‘Millennium Prayer’ for example, played 
by a professed Christian at high volume in between ‘Hot Stuff’ (that might 
not be the title actually, and I don’t know the artist/artistes – but the 
song from ‘The Full Monty’ anyway) and ‘Eye of The Tiger’ (again! Fucks 
sake) – ironic or not?

Cut to Friday. I am in bed reading; it’s just gone nine in the evening – 
‘Malone Dies’ incidentally, by Beckett, worth taking a look at. Oh Lord. 
Actually before that there’s something else. Cut to a week or so before 
that, a Wednesday in the afternoon. I am sitting in a philosophy seminar 
trying to defend Mark Rothko “…well, um, actually if you look at how the 
pieces progress in series and you see how his use of, er, colour moves from 
bright tones and contrasts to the almost exclusive monochrome works of his 
later life and how his canvasses got slowly smaller and stuff then, er, I 
think you *can* discern something about his life – he wasn’t getting any 
happier really. Er, yeah… oh, I’ll just get rid of whoever this is.” Having 
spent the past three or more years decrying mobile phones (that’s cell 
phones to our American cousins - my hat goes off to you all), and having 
been finally persuaded to bring one out to Sheffield with me (my family 
likes them enough to have spares even), and having found it surprisingly, 
almost irritatingly useful whilst here, despite resolving never to take it 
out with me here I was with it ringing in the middle of a lesson. In short, 
I had turned into everything I hate. Dear. But let me explain – I had had 
two people over the previous evening, who had slept on my floor. I had to 
get up for a lecture in the morning, but rather than turf them out at such 
an ungodly hour (i.e. one in the morning – they aren’t morning people), I 
thought they could leave when they wanted and give me the key back later in 
the day. But how? “Oh… phone me when you’re ready” Which meant I had to take 
the phone out with me, not being used to having it about my person I neglect 
to switch it off before the seminar etc etc. Still. In said seminar there is 
someone called Luna and someone Called Tristian good names all. Luna asked 
me where I got my pink tshirt from, and said that she liked it. The north is 
like that. Ha ha ‘the north’. Oh, no I’m not going to get into any 
stereotypes about shitpit northern sink estates or people being ‘friendlier’ 
but if I count up the amount of sartorial compliments I’ve had whilst in 
Sheffield (four!) with the amount I had in Birmingham (one) this year then 
Sheffield wins by a mile – and I’ve only been here a few weeks. Two girls 
stopped me on the street to say that they liked the beads I was wearing; 
I’ll show them to you sometime, pink and purple hearts. They were fifteen 
though, and one of them had a skateboard. Why aren’t you in school? Anyway I 
was reading, it was Friday evening, I wasn’t going anywhere, and the phone 
goes. I thought about not telling you for a minute there, it isn’t all that 
interesting. It was my brother: “I’m in town, it’s absolutely pissing it 
down here, I’m stood in the Phones 4U shop doorway, I can’t find anyone..”
“So you thought you’d ring me?”
I told you it wasn’t that interesting – I suggested he should go home, after 
he ran through all the possible places his friends could be and weren’t and 
the call ended with him actually spotting his friends, shouting “ALRIGHT 
LADS!” and hanging up. Actually that’s an interesting internet protocol 
thing (not as in the ISP type of protocol – netiquette if you will), if I 
indicate that someone is shouting by saying ‘shouting’ do I still need to 
put the shouted phrase in caps? It loses some of its impact if I do. Funny 
that. Hey, I was just listening to Pulp’s ‘Help the Aged’ – thinking back 
to, I guess, last year when Pulp played John Peel’s fifty years in 
broadcasting party, a ripple of laughter running through the audience when 
Jarvis dedicates it to John. Awww. But then there’s a bit in the chorus: “No 
big deal/So give us all a feel.” And I thought it’d be nice if he would’ve 
sung: “No big deal/So listen to John Peel.” A chance missed. I’ve decided I 
like Pulp a bit more than I used to, actually, I might run to buying the 
earlier albums (which I think have been recently reissued) even, if only so 
I can say things like: ‘Jarvis’ appearance on Stars in their Eyes was his 
Urinal, and almost as important’ without any real justification.

Why do some trees lose their leaves and others not? I don’t want the 
biological explanation either, make something up. Hm. Did I ever tell you 
about the time my aunt taught me transcendental meditation? I probably have, 
I can’t check the archives on this computer though. It’s a good story, I’ll 
leave it for another time. Ok, well it appears as though nobody in Sheffield 
wants to meet me at the moment, but that’s fair enough. I could give a 
lengthy list of reasons detailing why that is, in which the fault never lies 
with me, but rather with circumstance or obligation etc, but that wouldn’t 
make for great reading. On the other hand several people said nice things 
after my previous post, including Hannah Brown, who has sampled first hand 
my professed conversational ineptitude and yet still offers kind words – 
that’s… dedication isn’t quite the word, something close to it though – 
shift F7 – devotion, commitment, enthusiasm, keenness, perseverance, 
allegiance, ardour, loyalty for you. Hm. According to Microsoft Word ‘twee’ 
isn’t a word. It’s come up here with the red underline, indicating that I am 
somewhat in error. Well ha ha ha.

On the subject of Belle and Sebastian… oh, yeah, I really like the idea of 
avant-garde wallpaper by the way, though I have a feeling it would involve 
stapling actual real life in the flesh roses to your wall; is that even 
possible? Too late in the year to try, isn’t it? In Birmingham, I might have 
told you this before, the bus that I get into town, either the 96 or the 97 
goes down a long duel carriageway, along which are planted several trees 
which in the course of growing have jutted foliage out into the road. Now 
you’ve probably had the slightly unsettling experience of being on a bus 
which brushes past overarching branches – the disturbing ripping and 
scratching sounds as the wood scrapes along the side of the bus and springs 
back into place. Imagine though, what would happen if buses, about five 
every hour during peak time and a few more besides came into contact with 
those branches – the tree couldn’t take it, and eventually a bus shaped hole 
would be worn away, a negative of a rectangular double-decker side and roof. 
Well, and you might’ve seen this one coming, that’s exactly what has 
happened on the duel carriageway I mentioned above. Not just to one tree 
either, but lots, on both sides of the road. I wonder if anyone else has 
ever noticed it. Perhaps. It’s interesting. And sad, profoundly sad, sad in 
a way that I can’t even come close to describing. I’ll show you them 
sometime – perhaps you’ll just say: “This is how things are.” I don’t mind. 
This is bitty. Where was I? Oh yes, the similarities between Belle and 
Sebastian and Boards of Canada – thematic and musical, look out for them.

What else, what else? The Sinister tape tree! Remember that? Hardly anyone 
has spoken of it on list, other than regarding boring admin and so on, so 
I’ll put in a good word. I must admit that I approached said tree with some 
trepidation (for your delectation now I shall overwork the tree metaphor to 
the point of collapse), because it seemed that it was a tree, as it were, 
arboretum - a forest, a copse perhaps of similar trees – indie trees. See, 
if Belle and Sebastian are a big tree in the forest of indie, with lots of 
similarly minded, though not nearly half as nice trees growing nearby, oh I 
wont sully them with the names of the actual bands they represent, you know 
what I’m on about, but there they are. It’s a nice forest, plenty of shade 
and so forth, but you wouldn’t exactly want to live there – not when there 
are other nice forests just round the corner with various different trees, 
conifers I think (aside: if this were not just half hearted, which musical 
genre would be the non-deciduous; that is the evergreen?), and other more 
exotic strains. Cacti. And so forth. See, I worried that the branches of the 
tape tree would all be taken from those saplings that had sprung up from the 
windfalls of the Belles’ tree and grown in its shade. Happily this is not 
the case, cross fertilisation is abound the tapes I have so far received 
have, whilst remaining fairly true to the indie, er, genus, that is species, 
not been afraid to dally with seeds and cuttings taken from as far afield 
as, well, quite far afield. Lets just say that you’d have to climb right to 
the top of the Belle and Sebastian tree to see trees that far away – and 
that you can’t see quite so far from the top of chez T*mp**l*n. Take that 
however. For my own twig of the tape tree, though actually now I think about 
it there are two, a tape and a CD, which is I’m sure currently providing 
entertainment to someone, somewhere I selected flora which often grows just 
against the walls of the indie forest (walled forest isn’t a nice image, but 
it’s one I’m prepared to play with – would I better say ‘hedges’ or 
‘fences’?), but on the other side – so that it is not quite of the indie 
soil but is close, close. And also some stuff which isn’t close at all, but 
I thought would be of interest to the average b&s fan. And just looking at 
the tracklist for the tape there is some stuff on it which is pretty indie. 
So there you go. But what I also wanted to say was that it’s nice to be so 
connected – whether the tapes are just chucked together or minutely 
constructed through a series of graphs and charts there is a bigger sense of 
personality and internal logic to them that goes beyond just the songs in 
the order that they’re in. Is tape maker A trying to affirm what I like 
about indie, perhaps even to show me what I dislike about it, are they 
trying to create discord, to attack the status quo, to attack Status Quo? 
Which leads me back to my own tape and the CD, and I think: Was I saying 
‘This is the kind of stuff you should be listening to as well as the Belles’ 
or ‘This is the kind of stuff I listen to as well as the Belles’? It seems 
like an important difference, but lets not exaggerate it too much. The tape, 
I’d say, of the two, reflects my taste better – though I did make it much 
more recently. But lets not dwell on it too much.

Um, so. Well actually this really fascinated me when I first started reading 
Sinister – I shall extend the tree metaphor yet further, are we, the peoples 
of Sinister like the above cited saplings, growing around the mighty tree of 
Belle and Sebastian, feeding off it and waxing as it waxes, waning ditto. Or 
are we branches of one tree, the band, us – the whole shebang? Which seems 
more appropriate? I’ll let you ponder that one. I.e. what is the list’s 
relationship with the band? I ask because even when new songs, new albums 
are released there seems to be very little in the way of close dissection of 
the meaning or relevance of the songs. I don’t mean this at all as a 
criticism (in some ways it’s actually a blessing), indeed it would seem to 
be a recurring feature of fansites and mailing lists that when fans of bands 
get together there seems to be very little analysis. Perhaps this follows 
you think, everyone likes the band, where is the source of debate? But 
consensus on a band being good does not at all equal consensus on which bits 
are good and why. What is Stuart getting at in, say, ‘I Could be Dreaming’? 
Really. Really really really. I kind of want to take a stab at it, I know 
I’ve gone on enough already and most people have stopped reading by now. Or 
perhaps I’m just mildly deprecating to fish for yet more compliments – ‘Are 
you still reading?’ doesn’t quite tally, does it? So I wont, I honestly just 
plucked that song out of the air, but it’s quite a good one to pick apart, 
mixed images and so forth. Have a go if you like. Perhaps it’s something to 
do with the rock vs. academia dichotomy, that whole ‘You’re just killing the 
music by over-analysis, maaaan’ schtick. Perhaps. Similarly, in the way that 
this train of thought seems to be circular, viz I don’t want to make feel 
obliged to discuss songs as they would ‘Hamlet’ if they don’t want to, I’d 
be interested in reading stuff like that, but who wants to write it? Some 
people do, there are a couple of excellent pieces about b&s dotted about on 
the internet, but again I don’t want to guide the list into waters it isn’t 
familiar with (hubris indeed there, people will do as they like Kieran, not 
as you instruct them). More circularity. Like a Venn-diagram. Round one more 
time? Ok.

Conclusions from last weeks philosophy seminar (not mine): Free Jazz isn’t 
music. Music has rules. John Cage’s 4:33 = The Emperor’s New Clothes (I owe 
Dave Q of ILM fame for my “Thinking you’re being fooled by an artist = 
philistinism” rebut, which is more or less all I said that day). Westlife 
and Shakira are talentless rubbish. You have to have an objective standard 
of quality in order to discuss things rationally. Enough. Just as this post 
started this morning when I got out of the shower fifteen minutes earlier 
than I had got in (I doctored the numbers, you know, for the sake of 
elegance – it may have been more 9:03 when I got in, more 8:41 when I got 
out. Forgive me) were this yesterday then, as the time clicks over 11pm it 
would have been today, for midnight would have passed. But today persists. 
Sunday persists. Will it be Monday in an hour? Who can honestly say?

Love from Kieran.

p.s. To clockwatchers: Yes it is almost midnight, actual midnight here now - 
a long story involving corrupted disks and slow lifts. Smash imperialism.



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