Sinister: I Was a Kid Again

[Eric]

I've been in a heavy Belle & Sebastian mood for a few days now.

I'm not really sure why. I haven't listened to or thought about the
band this much since I was probably 22, way back in the heyday of
Sinister. Maybe it's the fact that I'm nearing 30. Perhaps it's the
fact that some of you are popping out little Sinisterites. It could be
that the last year of my life has been fairly unsettled and I'm
subconsciously using the fact that our fair band is working on a new
album and touring again after a few years as a excuse to go back to a
time where I cared this deeply about something as relatively
innoculously lovely as pop music.

Strangely enough, the album I've most been drawn to is Dear
Catastrophe Waitress. I think there's no doubt that there's a pretty
clear line to be drawn between the pre-FISHYCLAP and post-FISHYCLAP
eras. I could just be too familar with the band's earlier material and
so I'm trying to explore and love their later material, to get it to
mean close to something what Tigermilk, IYFS, and the EPs meant to me
when I was younger and stupider. All the music they made after I kind
of stopped caring.

And I've got to say, folks, that for all its faults, DCW is a
tremendously lovely album. I listened to FISHYCLAP straight through
yesterday for the first time in ages, and I was Not Impressed. It's
clunky, it's sequenced all wrong, some of the playing is off, and it
has the worst songs of their career on it. I'm not even talking about
The Clunker... songs like "Family Tree", "The Chalet Lines", "Nice Day
for a Sulk"... songs that if I never heard again I would be perfectly
fine with. I think the worst song on the album, though, is "Don't
Leave the Light on, Baby". Not because it's a bad song necessarily,
although I've never been a fan of it... no, because the song comes
across as insincere, like they don't care or don't buy it. And that's
really the problem with FISHYCLAP- it's just not any goddamned Fun. It
sounds tired, worn-out, run-down. It's an album from a band that was
about to give up.

That's what makes DCW such a revelation. That's why I think I've been
listening to it so much. For whatever reason, however they managed to
do it... B&S got the Fun back. It's not a great album, but you can't
fault them for not trying, or doubt their sincerity or just the sheer
joy they must have had recording these songs. The title track, "If She
Wants Me", "Piazza, New York Catcher", "If You Find Yourself Caught in
Love", "I'm a Cuckoo"... they're having a good time, and they want you
to, as well.

I think I figured out a way to make FISHYCLAP work, though. You
pretend it's an EP with this track listing:

1) I Fought in a War
2) The Wrong Girl
3) The Model
4) There's Too Much Love

Because, whatever else their faults, they always knew how to begin and
end an album. It's just too bad about the rest of it.

I don't know how long this mood of mine will last. It might only be
another couple of days, or it might be another month. All I know is
that I'm enjoying rediscovering this music, and I hope that you'll pop
in some of the DCW-era material and give it another listen. Maybe
you'll have as much fun with it as I am.

Love,
Eric

-- 
"Why are the machines so sad?"
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
        +---+  Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list  +---+
     To send to the list mail sinister at missprint.org. To unsubscribe
     send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
     majordomo at missprint.org.  WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister
 +-+       "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper           +-+
 +-+  "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
 +-+    "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000     +-+
 +-+  "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000  +-+
 +-+  "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001   +-+
 +-+               Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa                 +-+
 +-+               Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut!                +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+