Sinister: new puritanism

[Kieran Devaney]

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INK POLAROID

This is my friend and I standing in Sheffield Station – I’m the shorter one, 
wearing jeans and a yellow t-shirt – he’s much taller, also wearing jeans 
and a black hole hooded top (as in Courtney Love’s old band, not the things 
in space), I can’t stand hole, incidentally, he knows this but we don’t talk 
about it much, I’ve often wondered, and I’m sure he has too, quite how we’re 
able to tolerate each other’s wildly different musical tastes (actually 
they’re not all that different in the grand scheme of things, but in the 
rarefied world of indie they’re miles apart). We both look a bit bored and 
annoyed I suppose, this is partly because we’ve been waiting for people to 
arrive for ages – they’re very late, we were told on the phone that they’d 
be here in twenty minutes time, but that was over an hour ago, and while I 
think we both appreciate that British Rail minutes are just that little bit 
longer than regular ones, we didn’t expect it to take quite this long at 
all. We aren’t speaking much, having pretty much exhausted topics of 
conversation – we’ve been together nearly all day and by now we just want 
our friends to arrive and bring new things to talk about, and so that we can 
leave too. Rush hour is just taking hold, you can’t see outside because the 
camera is facing the wrong way, but if you could then you’d notice that the 
roads are full of rushing headlights tearing up the rain-slick roads - but 
all around us hundreds of people are flowing back and forwards, getting on 
trains and getting off trains – all sorts of people, schoolchildren, 
business people, families, alone, in groups, in couples – I always think 
it’s fascinating to see people just going about their business like this, 
hearing tiny snippets of their conversations, little fragmentary windows 
into their lives. I like the ones that look purposeful best I think, perhaps 
because they have that real dynamism that I sort of lack – complete 
conviction – of course they probably don’t and I’m just projecting, but it’s 
nice to think that maybe somebody does. Anyway I also look a bit annoyed, or 
perhaps a bit puzzled is more accurate because I’ve just turned to my friend 
and told him that I could spend hours in stations just watching people, 
because it’s really interesting just seeing them to-ing and fro-ing, 
basically what I just told you up there and he replied “I don’t know, they 
all seem pretty boring.” Just like that. And so I’m standing there next to 
him thinking that maybe we don’t have so much in common after all.

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I realise that is somewhat after the fact, more than a week late even, but 
my dog ate the first copy, then the computer crashed and then I had a dental 
appointment Miss. Honest.

An update on my last post now, as promised. After mulling things over for a 
wee while I’m afraid I opted for the cowardly option and said nothing. I 
even ran home for the whole of last week, but now that I’m back things seem 
to have calmed down a bit, so I suppose it’s ok. My apologies if you were 
gunning for me grassing him up, and I know a couple of people sort of were, 
but to be honest I don’t think, even if he would’ve been chucked out it 
would’ve made all that much difference, they all seem to be about as bad as 
each other and the small respite that would have afforded as they reeled 
from his departure would, I fear, have been short lived and would not have 
merited the hassle and guilt that telling on him would inevitably have 
brought on. Or that’s how I’m justifying it to myself anyway, the rest of 
you are entirely free to make up your own minds.

In better news, whilst at home for the week I managed to catch The Delgados 
live who were pleasant in a straightforward, workmanlike fashion – I don’t 
think gigs like that are going to win them any new fans, but if you like the 
songs, and fortunately for the most part I do, then you probably wont be 
disappointed. It’s a bit disheartening, though, to hear bands play like 
that, renditions which are as close to the records as possible, it must get 
very boring playing like that, and it’d be nice to hear a bit of 
improvisation (not in the serious, eyes shut jazzer way, though that’d be 
nice in itself, but more in the loosening up and having fun way). Which is 
sort of what Pram, the other band that I saw that week did and, ok, Pram 
aren’t nearly as lush as The Delgados, in fact some of their records are 
pretty out of tune (but far better for it, I think) and they’ve been known 
to put in some fairly shambolic live performances in the past, but I think 
they’ve gotten the balance of pretty and fragile about right now, and the 
new material sounded excellent too. I dunno if they’re touring properly, I 
think they did another date in London, but if they are and you get the 
chance, then I’d heartily recommend seeing them. The support acts were 
fantastic too, though one veered towards that dangerous musical philosophy 
that says that putting a breakbeat over anything is automatically funny, not 
the best territory to be on really, though he operated it pretty well – the 
other on the other hand brought to mind Muslimgauze, if he’d been concerned 
with the fate of people living in long defunct seaside towns rather than the 
Middle East. Brilliant.

I do have more things to say, but I’ll leave them for another time, I should 
really get to bed now.

Love,
- Kieran






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