Sinister: I wanna be Bruce cos he was born to run, and Brian cos he was Fun Fun Fun

[duke of harringay]

Ian Watson was talking about the brunettes album, and he was spot on cos
it's a great record. And they are indeed from New Zealand. When I listened
to it I started wittering on about how it was like Michael Chabon's book
'the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay', and the bit where Dr
Wertham's Seduction of the Innocents is published and the national outcry
against comics resulted in mass comic book pyres across the USA. It's all to
do with the embracing of fantasy, or at least imagination... I then went on
to compare them to Phantom Lady's hair. Which made sense at the time. Uh,
the review is here 
http://www.tangents.co.uk/tangents/main/2002/dec/phantom.html if anyone is
interested. Oh and Ian, did you get a Brunettes colouring book with yours?
Sorry if that sounds like snobbery or elitism or something, but actually it
leads me to my next topic which is, ah, the whole notion of elitism and
'ownership'...

I've argued long and hard in the past (archives... archives...) about how
some of the most essential ingredients of the whole Pop experience are
notions of elitism. I just think it's inescapable, if only for the fact that
the Pop moment is a personal one, and you can't get much more elitist than
that. There's also the sense of elitism based on not wanting to engage with
the mainstream, for whatever reason; perhaps because the thought of being
with too many other people who all 'share' a similar aesthetic terrifies (or
repulses) you, perhaps because you just don¹t like people that much, period.
Whatever. And ownership of art, well, in a mediated culture that's the
interesting part; how one takes ownership of the art by making a commitment
to it, by engaging with it, making it a part of your own world. By doing so
you change the 'meaning' of the art irrevocably (even if it's only a slight
change) - in simple terms the song is about 'x' to the songwriter or band,
but it's about 'y' when I listen to it. It becomes personal. This was always
something I loved about B&S in the first instance; they seemed to me to
understand that and to play with the whole mediated ownership thing. Looking
back now it seems less important, and the whole point seems to have been
clouded. And that's fine because we all change.

So yeah, my point was going to be something along the lines of 'does it
really matter to you if B&S 'make it' with this record?' Does it change your
ownership of the moments? Does it make your moments any less personal or
magical just because loads of other people may all start frothing at the
mouth and before you know it the air is filled with mutterings about johnny
come latelys and bandwagons... Well, does it?

I used to hate being accused of being a snob because I stopped listening to
a band when they became 'popular'. Such was other's interpretations of my
musical tastes: I only liked stuff if it was obscure and 'difficult'... It
was partly true of course, and playing the part of the truculent old git was
always appealing up to a point (and still is), but nevertheless it irked me
and it still does because it was and is so untrue. Usually I stop liking
someone because their records start to bore me or I just got excited by
something else and couldn¹t afford the time, energy or cash outlay to keep
up to date with so and so's latest record which all the kids were raving
about or blah blah blah. Nothing to do with 'popularity' per se.

So personally I say 'yay!' to Belle and Sebastian on the radio, playing
their songs for children and adults who meander along in an eternal state of
prolonged adolescence... I say 'hurrah!' for radio DJs and journalists
proclaiming B&S their favourite band and making a song and dance about the
new record because hey, you know what? It deserves a song and dance being
made about it because it's ACE. And if it goes to number one and all the
kids start wearing tasteful retro 'dog on wheels' hoodies then I'll grin and
whoop along (quietly so no one can actually hear me of course) with the best
of them. Because it wont change my memories, it wont change my moments.
Belle and Sebastian will still belong to ME.

And finally, thanks to Robin Stout for his suggestion we all start picketing
B&S to come play at my school. I think we should all email Banchory with an
email subject 'play at the Duke's school! do it to/for the kids!'. Go on,
you know you want to.

And again, finally (honestly), apologies if this mail was even more unhinged
than usual. Just got back from the Open Evening... Bleugh. My head is mush.

Keep those dreams burning forever.

The Duke

www.tangents.co.uk
the home of unpopular culture
PO box 102 .  Exeter . ex4 6yz . UK

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