tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81945741384308198652024-02-18T19:54:37.823-08:00exist right now'play from your fucking heart...'michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-87363801160841238562019-04-12T13:03:00.004-07:002019-04-12T13:07:15.513-07:00Fontaines DC - Dogrel (PARTISAN) Review<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>Fontaines DC</b> - <i>Dogrel</i> (PARTISAN)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">9.5/10</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This much-vaunted Dublin five-piece follow a series of increasingly successful 7” releases and acclaimed support slots with the likes of Shame and Idles, with <b>Dogrel</b>, named for the “lowest” form of working class Irish poetry, and a debut to die for.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Attempting to evade hyperbole here, inevitably failing, it’s a record that stands shoulder to shoulder with The Smiths debut from ‘84, Suede’s self-titled opening shot in ’92 or perhaps, if you’re willing, that decent Stone Roses one from ’89. Bear with us. It’s that good. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Bursting into life with “Big” and its crazily ambitious, entirely achievable chorus “My childhood was small / But I’m gonna be big” this is a one and a half minute explosion of everything that can be great about guitar music - bags of attitude, lashings of lyricism (“Dublin in the rain is mine / A pregnant city with a Catholic mind”), a furious, insistent, addictive chorus, a singer in Grian Chatten whose delivery feels instantly iconic - the loping vowels of his accent ringing clear and true with every utterance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The clear comparisons to artists from the ‘80s and ‘90s are unavoidable here - on “Sha Sha Sha”, a rock n’ roll tune warped out of shape with surrealist imagery and driving repetition combined with sly shifts and musical manoeuvres, you can hear The Fall; in the unbridled minor key heartache of “Roy’s Tune” you can practically hear Morrissey and Marr scratching away in a dank Manchester bedroom. Yet on every song, with every evocation of a legend, they offer something entirely fresh; a new twist on an old form.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They sing often of the ever-changing Dublin - a city that courses through the translucent veins of every tune here; “The Lotts”, a sad, Cure-like number, atmospheric and angst-filled, taking its title from a local bar; “Liberty Belle,” an irresistible retro rocker that saunters and struts as confidently as anything tossed out by the early 2000’s NY scene, again named for an historic neighbourhood watering hole, opening with the glorious, casual line “You know I love that violence that you get around here, that kind of ready, steady violence.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On “Television Screen” (which shares its title with the first ever Irish punk single) we’re treated to a sublime bass line from Conor Degan which lifts a stunningly evocative post-punk tune to the heavens, sending genuine chills down the spine. It’s not possible to express too vehemently just how perfectly this band capture modern mournfulness through a filter of classic, yet reimagined, rock tropes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What’s perhaps most remarkable about this debut is the assurance with which it’s delivered - they make it seem so damn easy. Tossing out dead-cert floor-fillers like “Too Real” with aplomb, and filling it with lines like “None can revolution lead with selfish needs aside” suddenly sounds like the most natural thing in the world; the raucous ramrod of “Chequeless Reckless” rocks like crack yet plays home to precocious, brilliant lines like “Charisma is exquisite manipulation / And money is the sandpit of the soul.” It’s unsurprising that the band members first met at a poetry class.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Evoking Joyce and, yes, of course, Shane Magowan, closing song “Dublin City Sky” is a built-in, encore-closing, arena-filling singalong in the finest off-kilter folk tradition; Impossibly poetic lines like “She threw her shoes into a bag and danced just like a dream / Her face was rubied up like no sun I’d ever seen” and “The January markets filled the cold air with the sound / The boys all full of laughter and their pocket with the pound / And in the foggy dew I saw you throwing shapes around” flow like wine, and your cup will indeed runneth over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is the sound of vitality; of authenticity and ambition; of style, substance and swagger all packed in to 35 minutes of vulnerable, honest pop music that is weighted with melancholy, yet buoyed by youthful vigour and touched, perhaps, by genius.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Michael James Hall</span></div>
michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-80819032246429256172019-02-16T07:39:00.001-08:002019-02-16T07:41:46.164-08:00KEXP - International Clash Day Celebrations - Hackney Wick, 4th-7th Feb, 2019: Review for Under The Radar<a href="http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/kexp_international_clash_day_at_studio_9294_in_london_hackney_wick_february?fbclid=IwAR2hynx4WLi8tT8rms6uRppzYB9VpllB5hWhDylrVGJlq7uwthNaPEQ56Fs">http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/kexp_international_clash_day_at_studio_9294_in_london_hackney_wick_february?fbclid=IwAR2hynx4WLi8tT8rms6uRppzYB9VpllB5hWhDylrVGJlq7uwthNaPEQ56Fs</a><br />
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<br />michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-1587023634460627162019-01-23T11:07:00.002-08:002019-01-23T11:08:24.294-08:00James Blake - Assume Form (2019) : Review For Under The Radar<a href="http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/james_blake_assume_form/">http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/james_blake_assume_form/</a><br />
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xMmichael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-54466574441546773202019-01-22T11:28:00.002-08:002019-01-22T11:28:04.169-08:00Protomartyr - Consolation EP (2018) Review for Under The Radar<a href="http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/protomartyr_consolation_e.p/">http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/protomartyr_consolation_e.p/</a><br />
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AIL xmichael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-10694445932371373932019-01-22T11:26:00.003-08:002019-01-22T11:26:32.332-08:00Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow (2018) Review for Under The Radar<a href="http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/sharon_van_etten_remind_me_tomorrow/">http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/sharon_van_etten_remind_me_tomorrow/</a><br />
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<br />michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-68917715141814210102019-01-09T05:34:00.001-08:002019-01-09T05:34:19.740-08:00Tiger<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">She woke up in the middle of the night and swung her legs out of the bed, planting her feet on the carpet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I’ve got something to tell you.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ray slept on, a feint whirring sound emanating from her nose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Are you awake?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The whirring continued.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Remember when we lived in Barr’s Grove? Was beautiful there. We were drinking a lot at the time though. Fun drinking though. It hadn’t gone wrong yet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Normally we’d get the train in together but that day you had gone to work and left me with Tiger. I don’t recall why. I think I had the week off? We slept late. She pawed me awake for her food. I remember it was a glorious morning - sun pouring through the crack in the curtains. Coffee on, radio on. I was smiling despite my throbbing head and dry mouth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I tapped away at some emails, social media…but I could feel the day sort of drifting away. I jumped in the shower and put on some summer clothes. I walked into the village. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That’s when I saw him. A wave of…it’s so hard to describe…but it was certainly a wave. I could have fallen over it was so strong. Nostalgia combined with..disgust? Anger? Frustration? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He looked older, of course, heavier, bearded, but still with the fashion sense of a 16-year old boy. He looked ridiculous. I watched him walk in and out of shops, perusing the aisles, buying nothing. Just a looker. He fiddled with things, pawed them. But didn’t take them away with him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Again, I couldn't understand my intentions but I began to follow him. He stopped off at the Drovers and ordered a pint. I sat and watched him while he sat in the garden, smoking, drinking and playing with his phone like a kid. I was glad he was alone. I wasn’t alone. I had you. He looked like he didn’t have anyone. That eased the stabbing pain in my chest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He drank more. I got into a routine of waiting for him to order and return to the garden, then going up to the bar myself and ordering the same drink, taking it back to my table and finishing up just as he approached the bar once more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This went on for a couple of hours, several drinks. My feelings became wilder, more pointedly vicious. I watched him and I hated him. I hated how he had treated me and I hated how he had treated everyone after me and everyone before me and how he would treat every woman who crossed his path in the years to come. Another 40+ years of him? Who needs that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">My empty stomach churned with beer. My head was spinning, thick, red with fury.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Late in the afternoon he got up to leave and I followed. I was ready to say something to him. To ask him about that night. To find out what he thought of himself. Had he forgiven himself? He shouldn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I caught up to him at the main road crossing at the top of the village. It was rush hour now and the pavements were packed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He paused at the crossing as traffic sped past. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I stood behind him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He was unsteady. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I gave him the smallest, most tentative nudge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He fell forward, a man reached out his arm to steady him but it was too late.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I turned back around and walked quickly, drunkenly away as he went under the wheels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I went back to the bar and drank, walked around some more, my mind empty, swirling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You came home to find me passed out on the sofa, Tiger crouched on my side, purring.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You woke me with a kiss and an offer of a cold beer. We had a lovely, loving night. Remember those?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Anyway. I’m tired now. I just thought it was something you should know.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ray’s whirring continued, her eyes wide open and wet in the darkness.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Michael James Hall, January 9th, 2019.</span></div>
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michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-19866674451670758752019-01-08T03:13:00.002-08:002019-01-08T06:31:55.768-08:00Late Night Movie (NSFW)<div style="font-family: helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When they left the room, exhausted, I felt your eyes dart back and forth between me and the television. I don’t remember what was playing. An old movie, no doubt. One of yours, no doubt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The sofa seemed too large somehow. Each of us at either end, a whole gulf of cushion separating us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You yawned and outstretched your arms.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“So…tired…but this is good”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You leant over and put your head in my lap, pulling down the blanket that lived across the back of the couch and wrapping yourself in it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I breathed deep and tried to re-focus on the monochromatic shapes on the screen. My stomach flipped, heart raced and I started to feel a stirring. The potential for embarrassment was high…but the potential for something else seemed more and more real.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Aside from the dialogue we were motionless and soundless for minutes. A long, viscerally tense stretch. We were vibrating, silently connected.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I stroked your hair. You made a contented sound. Cat-like and comfortable. More comfortable than I felt in that moment. It was all I could do to stop shaking as I got harder with each groan you allowed to escape from your lips.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You slid your hand up my thigh and in a swift but considered movement, unzipped me. You ran your hand across me, pulled me free of my jeans and without hesitation took me into your mouth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I stroked your hair as you licked me, outlining the shape of your body under that blanket with my hand. You moved slow and steady, quiet, allowing only noises that I could hear emerge from your nose and mouth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I reached for the remote control to switch off the distraction but fumbled but failed to find it. I closed my eyes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When I came, you stayed, mouth tightly wrapped around me as I gripped your body awkwardly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You remained right there until we both fell asleep and in the morning, when I woke, you’d wrapped me in that blanket and gone out to begin your day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The TV was on standby. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You didn’t leave a note. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Michael James Hall, January 7th, 2019</span></div>
michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-49381719092021787742019-01-07T06:16:00.000-08:002019-01-07T06:16:31.746-08:00Each and Every<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Every weekday morning I rise at 7.15am, I shower, I dress, I eat a light breakfast of granola and chopped apple, drink 2 cups of strong instant coffee while checking my email, then leave the house.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I walk 8 minutes to the train station where I board the 8.10am Guildford to London Waterloo. I board Carriage F and take my usual window seat at the table. Used to be that a silent couple would sit opposite, each in their headphone and smartphone world. I’d occasionally stare at the woman and her girlfriend and think about their sex life. Would they be able to separate from their devices long enough to interact in such a way? I’d grin at the thought.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It was 3 weeks ago, a Tuesday, when, instead of the Separate Couple I was presented with a young man, no older than 19 or 20, wearing all black, carrying a sports bag, sat smiling in front of me. No headphones. No screen evident.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I did the polite face-scrunch greeting mastered by the British over decades of awkward practice and fumbled for my own headphones in my inside coat pocket.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“How’s your morning?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I didn’t respond to the unusual vocal sounds. I kept foraging.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Lost your headphones?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I took pause. My heart-rate sped, anxiety filled my stomach, my breakfast revolving.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Good thanks. How’s you?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“They’ll be in there somewhere mate.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I’m sure I put them in last night but…”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I’m well though, thanks for asking - I’m Afemafuna - Affy my friends call me.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He extended a large hand, fingernails painted purple.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I tentatively removed my hands from my jacket pocket, wiped my right hand against my chest, a habit formed when I once had a real job, and hesitantly shook it. He smiled broadly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Doyle. Good to meet you.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Yeah, good to meet you too brother. Doyle your first name or your surname?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“First. Mum’s Irish.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Ah, mothers! Mine’s back at home in Nigeria. She still asks me if I’m eating properly, you know? Even at that vast distance. With those miles and oceans between us. Are you eating vegetables, Affy? Are you meeting anyone, Affy? Well, now I’m meeting you, Doyle. I’m very pleased to meet you, Doyle.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I felt a smile grow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Are you eating your vegetables, Affy?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He laughed with rare glee, head thrown back for volume.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I looked around, with nobody sat at either side of us he seemed to be upsetting no-one. I settled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I eat my vegetables, Doyle. Do you eat your vegetables though? That’s the question!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Five a day. Well, more like three sometimes.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“It can be hard to treat yourself kindly” he nodded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I had to agree.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Wednesday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Good morning Affy, how’s your day? Have you been eating your vegetables?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Silence. A quizzical expression.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Everything…alright?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Good morning, sir. How are you?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I smiled, my eyes narrowed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On Thursday I almost missed the train. I’d stayed too long in the shower, ruminating. Idiot. I ran onto the platform and just about beat the bleeps. The previous morning slipped from my mind momentarily as I approached my seat, sweating and uncomfortable. Affy was sat in <i>my</i> seat, front-facing. I sighed, taking the seat opposite.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He smiled and nodded politely. He popped in his headphones and closed his eyes. I could hear the tinny vibrations of reggaeton as he drifted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I stared, shifting in the seat in which I had not been made to sit before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On Friday he was in my spot once more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As the train pulled away I indicated toward his headphones, which had been firmly planted in his ears since before my arrival.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He pulled them out, shimmering sounds pouring into our space.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Yes?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Affy. You don’t remember me?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I’m sorry sir. How do you know my name?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I’m Doyle.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Pleased to meet you, Doyle” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He proffered his had, nails purple.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I resisted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“You…pretend not to know me….and take my seat?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I apologise, Mr. Doyle. I can’t be expected to remember every single person I meet each and every day” he laughed kindly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The sound of chatter from the rest of the carriage, the movement of the train, filled my head.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He looked at me, leaned forward. He pointed a purple-painted finger at himself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Are you absolutely certain this is <i>your </i>seat?” he asked.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Michael James Hall January 6th, 2019.</span></div>
michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-82969284751139047822019-01-06T05:40:00.003-08:002019-01-06T05:40:48.304-08:00Delight<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">When I was just a little girl my mother would bring me to this very department store. Always on a Saturday, hair scraped back from her face, eyes shadowed, the previous night on her breath and me in my finest, hair pigtailed, green wool socks pulled up to the knee, we’d walk the mile or so into town and ascend the two flights of marble stair, turn left at homeware, left once more at children’s clothing and into a glistening, treasure-filled grotto.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This was where the sweets, chocolates and candies lived - presented in a cornucopia of colour, so finely considered one would shy away from disturbing the perfect presentation, the kaleidoscope so finely balanced. Among these bulging shelves lived peanut brittle, boxed and bowed, home-made fudge, fancily packaged in vibrantly coloured paper and translucent plastic, honeycomb pulled together with ribbon, homed in soft golden cloth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Among these treats lived my favourite - my mother’s too - the Turkish delight. Soft, pliable, pistachio-peppered on its pink skin surface and inside, oh inside, the powdered sugar teasing one’s lips as the teeth tear into the pink, giving flesh. The rush of sweetness, the intensity of the rose scent flowing through the throat and nostrils. At least, that’s how mother explained it. As a child I never did get to relish that texture. By the time I tasted Delight my palette had soured - that of an adult woman, tastebuds shaded with a thousand cigarettes, a waterfall of gin. Yet still, it was a pleasure to see the stuff, trace a finger across the seams of its fine packaging.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Reynolds’ is a different kind of store these days, filled with incomprehensible gadgets, robotic doohickies, sluttish clothing and the like. Yet the corner of the second floor remains a place of solace. Though many of the brands have changed, our Turkish Delight remains - as glorious, as exotic, as promising as ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When mother was in the hospice we knew there would not be long - not much chance for a proper farewell. I gathered all the money I had from our various hider-holes in the house. I took the bus into town from our home and came here to Reynolds. I carefully picked the package that seemed fullest, the most pregnant with promise and I bought it and I took the bus over to the hospice. Mother was gone by the time I arrived. I began my night shift there just hours after her passing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Today I stand on the second floor, eyeing the grotto, pacing, careful not to attract attention. My hair in pigtails, my green woollen socks pulled up to the knee, the previous night on my breath. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I watch the children gaze at the candies, then are yanked away by impatient parents.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I take in the whole floor, I pull the needle from my housecoat pocket and I ever-so-carefully inject the package of Turkish Delight until the syringe is emptied.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A little girl, no older than I was when I first visited this magical place, rushes up to the sweets, hot-faced, her mother not far behind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Just one packet” warns her mother.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I indicate the Turkish delicacy.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">“Try these, dear, they’re a delight” I smile, pressing them into her damp, horrible little hand.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Michael James Hall, January 5th, 2019.</span></div>
michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-58409649151816150092014-12-18T10:12:00.001-08:002014-12-18T11:48:50.355-08:0013 shows - my best of 2014<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<b>13 SHOWS (well, more than that really)</b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<b> </b> </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
I thought I’d write about 13 of the live experiences
that meant the most to me this year. They aren’t in order, the text won’t tell
you much about the bands and it’s all irrelevant anyway as the best gig of the
year was our wedding band back in July but anyway, let me know your favourite
shows this year if you’d like to share. </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Augustines – The Roundhouse,Camden, London
08/12/2014 & The Plug, Sheffield 10/05/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
It was raining in Sheffield and I drank
something called a Zombie Reviver at lunchtime. Sheffield was beautiful, a
lurching, vertiginous maze of mountains, streets and genuine warmth despite the
wetness. The venue was three quarters full and the band was incredible. Passionate,
tuneful, desperate for excellence and heartbreakingly earnest in their njeed to
connect. Off the back of their second album proper they were beginning a live
journey that reached a climax at the Roundhouse seven months later as they
played their biggest ever headline show to nearly 5,000 adoring fans/friends
who screamed along to every song, cheered ‘til their throats were hoarse and
proved conclusively that the plucky little band that “could”, actually had and
were here to stay. Your heart fills, Christmas comes early, faith in rock n’
roll is righteously restored.<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Mclusky – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff 15/11/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
With his sometimes baffling blend of
confidence and self-effacement, Falko’s decision to put Mclusky back together
for a couple of benefit shows for the seemingly doomed Le Pub venue in Newport (played
there once, no-one came…well, my mam did but she’s obliged) rather than attempt
an all-guns blazing resurrection with shit new material and a string of
atmosphere-free gigs in half-full Carling caverns, seems entirely logical. With
an also reformed Jarcrew on support duties (they were like a Welsh At the
Drive-In with better songs if you’re interested) this incarnation of the
infamously prickly punk band was a thundering, hilarious, brilliant beast. Clwb
shook, the whole room a swirling mass of limbs, lager, flying shoes and lost
passports. To be in the pit for ‘Alan Is A Cowboy Killer’ seemed for me to be a
dream that would be forever unrealised. The reality was better, even, than the
fantasy. Though I felt pretty ill afterwards which diluted the euphoria
somewhat. This, along with my constant falling over at that hardcore gig at the
Empty Bottle in Chicago earlier in the year was proof positive that I am no
longer destined for the mosh pit. Ah well.<br />
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>John Grant – Primavera Sound, Barcelona, Spain
30/05/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
festival site emptied as the torrential downpour rendered the place essentially
uninhabitable. But determined were we to see John Grant. Never having seen him
before, now, it appeared, was The Moment. So we and a few hundred others,
wrapped in whatever we could find to shield ourselves from the storm, stood in
a massive seaside car park that should have held more than 10,000 and watched
the man play. It was like falling in love. That voice, his words, the
eye-watering mastery of melody, the abyss-like sadness of ‘Glacier’ and the
resounding, jaw-dropping awe of ‘Queen Of Denmark’. It was chilling, thrilling,
elating, fucking soaking. A double rainbow sprung up over the ocean as the
final notes were played. I’m not kiddin’. A fucking double rainbow, maaaan. It was that
kind of a gig.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Arcade Fire/Television/Dan Deacon/The Unicorns –
Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York 25/08/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
Our last night in New York and we’re
treated by the great Dawn Kalani Cowle (check her blog <a href="http://ifhannahwere30.wordpress.com/">http://ifhannahwere30.wordpress.com</a>)
to a show in beautiful Brooklyn. We’re exhausted, we’re flagging, we’re failing
to catch the spark of excitement for the show. But Dawn takes us to a great
dive bar, there’s vegan mac and cheese and then we settle into the nosebleeds
in the cavernous home of the Nets. Unicorns play that song abpout them being
Unicorns and it’s cool and cute and warm and fuzzy and then Dan Deacon turns
the arena into a kid’s dance party – the standing area split down the middle,
punters nominated as lead dancers we all need to mimic…the whole deal. It’s
joyous, uplifting, just like Deacon’s expansive, wondrous music. Television
play. You know, Television. Did they close with ‘Marquee Moon’? Can you get
thrown out of the Barclays Center for wanking? Not saying. Arcade Fire enter
through the crowd to the theme from Blade Runner and it’s genuinely exciting.
As exciting as their visually sumptuous show, their arms wide open anthems,
their broken ballads. As exciting as the centre of the arena’s DJ booth turned
into a dance podium and as exciting as having David Byrne join them for a cover
of Suicide’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’. It was almost incomprehensible. It made it ok
to have to come back to the UK.<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Black Sabbath/Faith No More – Hyde Park, London
04/07/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
Faith No More were the first band I ever
went to see without parental supervision. Well, OK L7 were supporting so I saw
them first technically but you get the idea. Could it be possible that
20-something years later they’d be just as good? As vital, as ferocious, as
funny, as cool and kinky? Turns out yeah. And they had new songs that were an
absolute blast too. For all the brilliance of Mike Patton’s many musical
adventures FNM will always be the one closest to my heart and they showed just
why here, on a sunny London afternoon. Later, in the dark, the screens fill
with images of Bush, Blair, bombs dropping and blood. It’s ‘War Pigs’, it’s
Sabbath and they sound like the end of the world. Iommi’s riffs are absolutely
electrifying, Ozzy’s voice a wild croon from the netherworld, the tunes
massive, the darkness all-enveloping. It was metal at its most majestic and
overpowering. All hail.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Sun Kil Moon – St John’s Church, Hackney, London
03/12/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
In twenty years of watching Mark Kozelek
live never have I really seen him attempt to “front” a band. Sure in Red House
Painters he stood up and sang but in no way could he be considered a frontman,
hidden as he was behind his hair and guitar. In recent years he’s been firmly
sat on his arse behind a nylon stringed Spanish guitar and trapped his sonorous
voice at a low, whispered monotone. Tonight he’s got a cool, weird three-piece
band as adept at experimentation and jazz runs as they are complex folkery and
he’s stood right there, stage centre,belting out tunes from the very best <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>album of 2014, ‘Benji’. It’s stunning. Confusing
certainly, but also mesmeric. The Slint-like rap of new single ‘Possum’ gives
way to a cover of ‘Little Drummer Boy’ that, in Kozelek’s own words, sounds
like Swans. It’s all about dynamics tonight – Kozelek’s vocals leaping from deflated
mumble to raucous scream, even a touch of falsetto as he and the band tear
through a genuinely exciting, spine-tingling set to the largest crowd they’ve
drawn in years. Yeah he plays on that thing he said about a band a bit too much
but he’s on good form, in good humour and Sun Kil Moon sound like they are on
the verge of a personal sonic breakthrough.<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The Pharmacy/Snuff Redux – Summit Block Party,
Seattle, Washington 09/08/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
It’s hard to leave a city with which you’ve
just fallen in love and maybe the hardest I’ve ever fallen was for Seattle. On our
final night in that glorious spiral-down town of beaches, mountains, snow, sea,
bars, bookstores and beauty we ambled into our neighbourhood street party.
Local legends The Pharmacy tore out a scrappy, slurping set of rock n’ roll tunes
in what would prove to be their farewell gig and the street filled with curious
onlookers, hardcore fans lining the kerb, kids pulling skateboard tricks on a
makeshift ramp on the corner. Later, the warm, swaying night played host to the
fantastic, furious Snuff Redux, local kids with a penchant for Superchunk and a
love of all things London which made me laugh as we spoke after their glorious,
teenage dream of a set. The vision of Seattle I had as a teenager played out
for me in person that evening and as that smiling, beer-spilling moshpit filled
the residential road it was as close to a perfect moment as one could ever wish
for. And I'm still in love.<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The Twilight Sad – Parc de la Ciutadella, Barcelona,
Spain 31/08/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
Why, oh sweet lord, why did I never go and
see Twilight Sad before? Here, under glistening green foliage they played a
stripped down acoustic set that left the heart of each of their songs out on
the blood-soaked sleeve of the stage. Having played a full set to an adoring
crowd at the festival proper the night before this might have been approached
as something of a throwaway. By a lesser band, sure, but Twilight Sad are on
the verge of being a truly great band and they play like one here this
afternoon. James Graham’s voice at the forefront, yearning, nearly collapsing
through dark beauties like ‘The Wrong Car’ and rare encore offering ‘Mapped By
What Surrounded Them’, there’s a classic Scottish sadness that runs through
everything they do and when contrasted with the warm sun and greenery of this
ancient park it feels like an approximation of magic.<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Bob Mould – Village Underground, Shoreditch,
London 18/11/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<a href="http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/2014/11/21/bob-mould-village-underground-london-18th-november/">http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/2014/11/21/bob-mould-village-underground-london-18th-november/</a></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
We’ve spent much of this year ripping off
the songwriting style of Mr Mould in rehearsal rooms across East London and it
only seemed fit that the band have a night out at his show. Sadly Stu
(keyboards and singing) couldn’t come but otherwise a perfect night of looking
at one another acknowledging exactly where all those steals were stolen from
was had. Nick from the best I say.<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Morrissey – O2, Greenwich, London 29/11/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
‘At The Request Of The Artist NO MEAT
PRODUCTS Available Tonight’ reads the sign which predisposes me to love this
gig even more than usually I might. A properly, fully sold out 02 (no
curtaining off the top bits for Moz) roared approval for the moaning, maudlin
mancunian as he dealt out most of his rather great new record ‘World Peace Is
None Of your Business’ alongside 100% definite, no questions asked,
cheque-cashed classics like ‘The Queen Is Dead’ Speedway’, ‘Nobody Loves Us’
and then, in the encore the savge 1-2 blow of ‘Asleep’ and ‘Every Day Is Like
Sunday’ which remains the most life affirming declaration of misery ever
penned. In these moments we forget the letdowns, the occasional lurches ionto
Little Englander silliness and are able to appreciate Moz for what he is – one of
our greatest ever songwriters and a man who, despite his incredible
awkwardness, has the power to connect and unite.<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">11.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Manic Street Preachers – The Roundhouse, Camden,
London 15/12/2014 & 17/12/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
Another band with whom I’ve a 20+ year
history and, as I discussed at the first night with the rather excellent artist
Peter Wilson (<a href="http://www.rotedesign.com/">www.rotedesign.com</a>), a
unique one in their ability to push me away with one move and draw me back in
with the next. In recent years they’ve overcome their mid-period droop and have
released two excellent albums in as many years while remaining a consistently
great live prospect. Now, they’ve taken on the tough job of facing up to their
true legacy : The Holy Bible. It’s pointless describing why or how the album is
important, suffice to say for Manics fans to see them play it live in its
entirety in its twentieth anniversary year is the grail itself. When JDB
struggled with his voice through illness on Monday the crowd are right there to
joyously finish any line he couldn’t complete. They are just as loud on
Wednesday when the maestro is back on form and in a place where he actually
seemed somewhat at ease with the gargantuan beast he was carrying to birth in
front of this adoring crowd. Nicky turning Mausoleum’s unbearably bleak chorus
into a cathartic singalong might have been the best touch of the night. Or
perhaps it was that ragged death-rattle of ‘4st 7lbs’…hell, maybe it was just
when they opened the second set with ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’. I mean, have you
actually fucking HEARD that song?! These were two of the very best concerts I’ve
ever witnessed and having seen them 30 times or more over the years, it’s
absolutely easy to say they may never have been on better live form.
Affirmation, redemption, intelligence, power … you get the fucking lot with
MSP.<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">12.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Neil Young/The National, Hyde park, London
12/07/2014</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
Sunshine, friends and Hyde Park in the
summer. Neil Young cries out ‘Separate Ways’ and The National prove themselves
serious contenders for the big leagues. The heat overwhelms as Mumbly Joe
national sips his red and paints cryptic lyrical portraits of strange emotional
landscapes. Later the arms go up and the head goes back for ‘Down By The River’,
the fists pump and the voices raise for ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ and ol’
black takes a classic Crazy Horse battering. Despite the great times and sense
of endless summer these days can recreate I still wish to never visit that shit
pretend village they set up at these Hyde Park shows ever again. Somehow the
organisation of the event made it seem even more anti-fan than previous Hard
Rock Calling seasons at the park had even managed – and that takes some doing.
Still – Neil conquers all.<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">13.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Sharon Van Etten – The Chapel, Mission District,
San Francisco 29/07/14</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
Charlie Gray (who has music here http://graycharles.bandcamp.com/
) tipped us off that on the very first day of our Honeymoon there was an invite
only Sharon van Etten show in town. Hoiw would we get tickets? We emailed the
promoters and they gave us some. Baffling. We walked the beautiful and endless
streets of SF, took a bus out to Ocean Beach and basked in the foggy sunlight
of the curve of the Great Highway, a Koz fan’s ultimate day trip. Delirious
with tiredness and jetlag we queued on the street outside the Chapel for 2
hours. When we got inside the bar was absolutely free and so were the t-shirts
and prints. They were printing them up right there as you chose your design and
colour. We watched from the back as the packed room stood in rapt attention as
one of our finest current singer/songwriters let fly with beauties like ‘Afraid
of Nothing’ from her most recent album ‘Are We There’ as well as offering rare
live outings to ‘Hotel 2 Tango’ and her closer, the Karen Dalton song ‘Red Are
The Flowers’). It was strangely subdued, subtle, a respectful atmosphere of
artistic appreciation. Can you imagine what a gig like thisin the UK would be
like with a free bar? No matter. This was perfection and we felt like it was
all laid on just for us. ‘Cos we’re so fucking special. We sat out on the
pavement afterwards and I thought “Good summer this.” Cheers, Shazza.<br />
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michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-74133858164151862192014-03-27T08:25:00.002-07:002014-03-27T08:25:31.036-07:00act 9: some songs, some words about the songsi'm tired, i've got a shitty, unshakeable cold and i want soup (which i have) and bed (which i don't).<br />
<br />
on the plus side the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/officialmenswear">menswe@ar</a> show last night at bush hall was pretty special - i swear those old tunes NEVER sounded that good back in the day and the new material was genuinely great. here's a mis-labelled live clip from the show's climactic tune 'stardust':<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB9CHZjSc0M">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB9CHZjSc0M</a><br />
<br />
you can probably see from this that a great deal of fun was had. was the first time i''d seen the band play their own songs (there was a bowie tribute show earlier this year) since '95 at cardiff uni - and this time one of my best friends in the world was playing bass for them. good fuckin' times y'all. i'd be surprised if we don't hear more new, cool things from the 2.0 version of the band in coming months.<br />
<br />
like dum dum girls? aye. like crocodiles? generally, aye as well. so may as well have a look at this sweet collaboration between dee dee penny from the former and brandon welchez from the latter...it's as purposely lo-fi and home-made looking a video as you'd expect while the tune is a stoned dreampopper with added fangs at the back. yip. they're calling themselves haunted hearts.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB_ZM9mW4XI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB_ZM9mW4XI</a><br />
<br />
nextlies we have a bit of wayward, slalom-jumping electronica in the shape of the new order-loving derby pair <a href="http://ghosttwins.bandcamp.com/">ghost twins</a> and the lead track from their upcoming album 'never fear total failure (out april 14th) called 'breaking friends'<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/ghosttwins/breaking-friends-2">https://soundcloud.com/ghosttwins/breaking-friends-2</a><br />
<br />
it's sorta sad, sorta sunkissed, subtle but entirely slammin'. the more i'm hearing this the more i'm hearing m83, postal service et al and that's no bad thing. i laps it up.<br />
<br />
last up today is the jaw-droppingly cool art-country rock n' roll of <a href="http://www.facebook.com/jessicaleamayfield">jessica lea mayfield</a>, whose new album 'make my head sing' is out on june 2nd. this is the lead track from that and it's a taut, sleek slice of strangeness that dabbles with david lynch, tickles cowboy junkies and always keeps the tension ratcheted up to an uncomfortable level. it's also a CHOON.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/ato_records/i-wanna-love-you-by-jessica">https://soundcloud.com/ato_records/i-wanna-love-you-by-jessica</a><br />
<br />
and yeah, i suppose it's a country song too. gorgeous. especially those three notes knocked off the back of blue oyster cult's lorry.<br />
<br />
oooh let's have that anyway shall we? yeah, fuck it, it's basically the weekend:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClQcUyhoxTg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClQcUyhoxTg</a><br />
<br />
FEEL that cowbell.<br />
<br />
hope yr enjoying the blog - please comment and share. bands and artists please send me your tracks direct - i want to be featuring more and more lesser known bands here. loves ya as usze.<br />
<br />
xm<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-72964536620308372892014-03-25T09:26:00.000-07:002014-03-25T09:26:22.399-07:00act 8: some songs, some words about the songsit's been a few days eh? i know i know, i never write, never call. i got caught up with all sorts of tangled reviews and deadlines and broken speakers and i-pods that won't charge and and and...anyway...songs...<br />
<br />
firstly swedish/uk/us 4-piece <a href="http://www.thefranklys.com/">the franklys</a> with this jarring, buzzing slice of yelping, shimmering, mud-stained pop called 'imaginarium':<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/9pr/the-franklys-imaginarium">https://soundcloud.com/9pr/the-franklys-imaginarium</a><br />
<br />
that's pretty exciting eh? there's a nice vintage feel to that but it's also got the correct amount of aggression ie too much ie just enough. it's the b-side to their new single 'puppet', out on electric wood on april 7th and they play some london shows soon - let's go.<br />
<br />
the very next thing i want to let y'all in on is, with no small amount of hubris, something i helped work on a while back - well, i made the video anyway. point is london's <a href="http://theunderstudiesuk.bandcamp.com/">the understudies</a> are a wonderful band, their new album 'let desire guide your hand' is out imminently and this is the video we did for one of the tracks 'erika k' a little while back:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U55VXOSM6N0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U55VXOSM6N0</a><br />
<br />
they play an album launch show at the lexington in london this coming sunday, 30th march, let's go to that too.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://iamkatygoodman.com/">la sera is the name katy goodman</a>, ex of the wonderful vivian girls, records under these days. what we have here is a free download of an unsurprisingly tuneful, borderline glorious tale of hope and escape and getting away from a dickhead that thunders along like a ben deily era-lemonheads tune:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/hardlyartrecords/la-sera-losing-to-the-dark-1">https://soundcloud.com/hardlyartrecords/la-sera-losing-to-the-dark-1</a><br />
<br />
the follow-up album to 2012's 'see the light' is the forthcoming 'hour of the dawn' out on june 2nd.<br />
<br />
there's a show at the hoxton bar and grill on may 23rd as well as a bunch of other uk and euro-shows. LET'S GO TO ALL OF 'EM!<br />
<br />
hey - how's about this free new download from <a href="http://younggodrecords.com/">swans</a>?<br /><br /><span style="color: #2c2cfb;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/muterecords/swans-a-little-god">https://soundcloud.com/muterecords/swans-a-little-god</a></span><br />
<br />
and how about the new <a href="http://theafghanwhigs.com/">afghan whigs</a> single?<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3b5998; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; cursor: pointer; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://bit.ly/YoutubeAWLottery">http://bit.ly/YoutubeAWLottery</a></span></span><br />
<br />
i'd really like to be hearing tunes that are coming straight from artists and people who just flatout love a band maybe i've not mentioned or haven't heard of - please let me know about it! feel free to comment here, share this on twitter/fb etc - the more the merrier, right?<br />
<br />
slaterzzzzzzzz<br />
<br />
xm<br />
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michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-12451047652281194582014-03-19T09:01:00.001-07:002014-03-19T09:01:29.196-07:00act 7: some songs, some words about the songsit's wednesday, i've a sore throat, i'm drinking some sort of fruit tea and i'm excited about wrestlemania.<br />
how's you?<br />
not really, don't care.<br />
<br />
have some tunes though...<br />
<br />
here's the new song by the mighty, shouty, bitey, mouthy canadians fucked up - it's called 'paper the house' and is drawn from the forthcoming album 'glass boys' out june 3rd on matador:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLQVVQIg9ME">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLQVVQIg9ME</a><br />
<br />
they play the uk soon including a gig at london's shitty koko (see you there regardless) and you can talk to 'em here: <a href="http://fuckedup.cc/">http://fuckedup.cc/</a><br />
<br />
that last album of theirs and the shows that went with it were just fucking minty fresh so judging by this tuneful/abrasive beaut we're in for more of the same. solid work.<br />
<br />
last year dai lynch released another pretty good album of noir rumblings named 'the big dream'. he's about to drop a remix 12" of same on record store (shop) day and here is moby's take on the title track; haunting, woozy, cool and featuring a wild reinterpretation of lynch's original vocal by mindy jones:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRKG2l3nUzU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRKG2l3nUzU</a><br />
<br />
there's more on there from the likes of bastille to get you fuckin' psyched as fuck but hey let's face it it's a record store (shop) day release so no real people are gonna really land a copy are they? enjoy that track while you can.<br />
<br />
if you don't know who dai lynch is cock off like, but still: <a href="http://www.davidlynch.com/">http://www.davidlynch.com/</a><br />
<br />
19-year old south londoner jamie isaac is following in the footsteps of the likes of james blake and breton with his chimerical, sparse but delicious take on sad-soul and this here is the purposely obtuse viddleo for 'she dried' the lead track from the forthcoming 'blue break' ep, out march 24th on house anxiety/marathon:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQv2bjkPWAE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQv2bjkPWAE</a><br />
<br />
it's the kind of sleepy, somnambulant stuff that south london seems to be so sweet at...probably all that time chilling in the reggae hut at the windmill. AMIRITE?<br />
<br />
right, last on the music front for today is my favourite song of the week by some margin. it's effortlessly touching, poetic, sparse - all the tinglin' things that speak to me. sounding simultaneously ancient and absolutely vital this is the debut song from uk three-piece candles, it's called 'two roses' and it features on an upcoming 12":<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/88975233">http://vimeo.com/88975233</a><br />
<br />
that is just something else eh? let's not make those obvious name comparisons, we're better than that ain't we?<br />
<br />
well i'll leve you to listen to that over and over again for a few hours.<br />
<br />
like what you hear? let me know. something i should hear? tell me.<br />
xm<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-623640486936640152014-03-18T06:27:00.000-07:002014-03-18T06:27:15.644-07:00act 6: some songs, some words about the songsdirect from their incredibly appealing new york-based teendom we have the instantly adorable sunflower bean with their i-phone made video for '2013'. self-aware doesn't begin to cover it but when those 'gazey melodies hit you'll be in bits. unsigned as yet and none of 'em pushing twenty, pretty sure there's a sweet, bright future for these awesome fuckers:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_EylIzpggU#t=80">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_EylIzpggU#t=80</a><br />
<br />
you can download the tune here for free too: <a href="http://sunflowerbean.bandcamp.com/">http://sunflowerbean.bandcamp.com</a><br />
<br />
i mean, that's properly good isn't it? love those johnny marr guitar sounds too...<br />
<br />
next up we've got a live performance from a band i once absolutely adored and still, like a drunk old ex-lover, have a lot of affection for - particularly when they drop new gear like this:<br />
<br />
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<br />
sad, slow and bittersweet like the best of the hold steady, this tune 'the ambassador' bodes well for the forthcoming album 'teeth dreams' out on march 25th. sounds like they may have some o' that ol' magic back to me...<br />
<br />
third today is another live performance, this time from my all-time favourite artist mark kozelek. there's not much to say on this other than - buy the new record 'benji' which is out now, then go see sun kil moon live as soon as is humanly possible. best in the world.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.stereogum.com/1670303/watch-mark-kozelek-perform-i-cant-live-without-my-mothers-love-at-sxsw/video/">http://www.stereogum.com/1670303/watch-mark-kozelek-perform-i-cant-live-without-my-mothers-love-at-sxsw/video/</a><br />
<br />
lastly we're back in new york with our future and this grab of the lead tune 'on surface' from their new EP 'perennial construct'.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD29lmrDbgg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD29lmrDbgg</a><br />
<br />
apparently all of the personnel involved in the record are a part of NY's experimental elite - make of that what you will BUT there's no doubting the menacing, troubling pop contained up there in 'on surface'.<br />
<br />
hope you like these.<br />
<br />
recommend me some tunes?<br />
<br />
xm<br />
<br />
<br />michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-62734513225287128202014-03-17T06:34:00.001-07:002014-03-17T06:34:29.319-07:00act 5: some songs, some words about the songsello monday you caaaahhhhhhnt.<br />
<br />
tunes today begin with this entrancing, pounding slab of detroit house inspired hypnotism from bryce hackford.<br />
<br />
the face-melting video for 'another fantasy' is right here: <a href="http://vimeo.com/69821594">http://vimeo.com/69821594</a><br />
<br />
and it reminds me of dan marner's favourite ol' channel 4 show 'the trip'. happy days.<br />
<br />
hackford's album 'fair' is out now.<br />
<br />
here's the latest in my limited series of cooling (at least the front bit anyway) videos for hot days, this time in the shape of our aussie friend chet faker's melodious, typically addictive newie 'talk is cheap'.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP_-P_BS6KY&feature=youtu.be">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP_-P_BS6KY&feature=youtu.be</a><br />
<br />
i am sorely tempted to grab a tangerine and peel it in a sexual fashion after that.<br />
<br />
faker's undoubtedly smoooooooooth (but home recorded)new record 'built on glass' is out on april 14th and he's playing a bunch of shows to go with that. full album review to come soon.<br />
<br />
tony doogan has produced the new EP 'toska' for broken records. this free download track is huge in the way frightened rabbit are huge, anthemic like elbow - but with idlewild's awkward pointy-pointy-ness. in short its touching, sweeping, massive -all of that. get it in the headphones as loud as possible. see, indie can be alright maaaaaaan<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/broken-records-band/revival-shortlist-exclusive">https://soundcloud.com/broken-records-band/revival-shortlist-exclusive</a><br />
<br />
they live here: <a href="http://www.brokenrecordsband.com/">www.brokenrecordsband.com</a> and the EP is out on april 24th.<br />
<br />
last for today is the glimmering wonder of belgian dreampop duo amatorski with the lead track 'hudson' from their upcoming album 'from clay to figures'<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/amatorski/hudson-from-the-upcoming-album/">https://soundcloud.com/amatorski/hudson-from-the-upcoming-album/</a><br />
<br />
its making me want to go to primavera immediately.<br />
<br />
hope you are enjoying the blog. tell me your thoughts, send me your songs and enjoy<br />
xm<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-52748685946324243752014-03-12T07:30:00.000-07:002014-03-12T07:40:36.620-07:00act 4: some songs, some words about the songsa beautiful day here in gangster's paradise and me and the owens and lewie are off to see the mighty michael gira in a church tonight - suitably un-summery.<br />
<br />
we'll start today's truffles with one of gira's favourite artists james jackson toth who records under the name wooden wand and has released on the swans' frontman's young god records in the past. something of a mini-legend on the NY anti-folk scene, mr wand has a new record out on the illustrious fire records, may 19th, called 'farmer's corner', here's the glimmering, strangely menacing 'dambuilding'<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/firerecords/wooden-wand-dambuilding">https://soundcloud.com/firerecords/wooden-wand-dambuilding</a><br />
<br />
damn my eyes that's a good song.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.woodenwand.org/">visit him: http://www.woodenwand.org/</a><br />
<br />
next, set yourself aside an hour and twenty minutes, take your top off and go fuck-cock mental to this full length recording of fugazi live in 1997...<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcG2CMLu59E">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcG2CMLu59E</a><br />
<br />
it's quite intense. i'd pay in blood for a cheeky reunion show or three. but that's NOT WHAT HARDCORE'S ABOUT MIKEY.<br />
<br />
isle of wight may not be known for its miraculous musical output but the champion brothers, performing under the name CHAMPS (see?) are all about altering that perception with their atmospheric acoustic haunty-haunty-ghosty-lovely songs like this one, called 'st peters':<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWkcP1rv1Hkfh">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWkcP1rv1Hkfh</a><br />
<br />
that video is smart too eh? nice and cooling. i'm thinking kings of convenience on downers vibes (which excites me) for their debut record 'down like gold' which is out RIGHTFUCKINGNOW<br />
<br />
they live here: <a href="http://www.champschampschamps.com/">http://www.champschampschamps.com/</a> and they play the lexington on march 31st. if you fancy buying me a fizzy pop i'll be down the front (*at the back, sulking).<br />
<br />
just a brief bloggings from me today sorry, i need to get up to whitechapel and get a tan before the show - i'll leave you with the aforementioned michael gira, one of the best around, one of the best ever - here's a little fun-time ditty called 'god damn the sun' which to me sounds like a sinatra standard in an alternate universe :<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Ok8UOJ7fY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Ok8UOJ7fY</a><br />
<br />
i quite fancy a cheeky cover of this. probably a terrible idea.<br />
<br />
like the songs? let me know. got a song? send it me.<br />
<br />
xm<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-4286561068789514662014-03-11T06:49:00.005-07:002014-03-11T06:51:03.526-07:00act 3: some songs, some words about the songs <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US">it's a grey tuesday afternoon, precisely the kind you don't wanna experience in spring in laaahndan fakkin taaaahn. here are the tidbits that have made my day better, hope they do the same for you: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">first try out this sublime, glitchy blend of vocal
samples that benjamin mason from sunny pembrokeshire has crafted into a
soundscape of skittering, joy-inducing glory on ‘willis williams mcjones
edwards’ (pretty welsh sounding, butt): <a href="http://benjaminmason.bandcamp.com/track/willis-williams-mcjones-edwards-iii">http://benjaminmason.bandcamp.com/track/willis-williams-mcjones-edwards-iii</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">the whole album, which spins from pastoral
experimentation to backwoods folkisms,
is available here: <a href="http://benjaminmason.bandcamp.com/album/dogs-n-yaaa">http://benjaminmason.bandcamp.com/album/dogs-n-yaaa</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">finnish JAMC obsessives black lizard gaze
lovingly at their hi-tops and shake their tambourines on this new track
‘forever gold’<a href="https://soundcloud.com/soliti/black-lizard-forever-gold-1">https://soundcloud.com/soliti/black-lizard-forever-gold-1</a> it may be cliched but that sound always feels cool to me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 22.0pt;">
it’s a precursor to their
upcoming tour all info on which is, one would guess, here: www.facebook.com/blacklizardmusic</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">roddy frame is a living legend, songwriting
hero, scottish elvis, all of that – and he’s still, many years after his teen
glory in aztec camera, an astounding performer, brilliant lyricist and general
awesome bastard. This has got one of those choruses you wish you wrote and an
album to follow :<a href="https://soundcloud.com/aedrecords/forty-days-of-rain01-wav/s-RPTwc">https://soundcloud.com/aedrecords/forty-days-of-rain01-wav/s-RPTwc</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">how I love the frame-dog. that track is
nabbed from his new album ‘seven dials’ out in may – his first since 2006 I
reckon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/freeswim/you-get-out-what-you-putin">https://soundcloud.com/freeswim/you-get-out-what-you-putin</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">here's a sweet treat - about a minute into this you’ll see the
rather wonderful band BOY experience fame in a foreign land for the first time
as the duo play their debut US show in Brooklyn: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEng60LouQo#t=68">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEng60LouQo#t=68</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">LAVVERLY.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">lastly a link to a great interview with a massive
hero of mine ian mackaye from the legendary indie spiritualist site – get it
read, feel better, buy more records on dischord: <a href="http://theindiespiritualist.com/2012/05/08/mackaye/">http://theindiespiritualist.com/2012/05/08/mackaye/</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">you like what you see mister? missus? you want
more? lemme know?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">xm</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-34849604848984695782014-03-10T05:54:00.001-07:002014-03-10T12:40:36.648-07:00act 2: some songs, some words absout the songs<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">sultry, slow, jazz-tinted lounge with
threatening, portishead overtones that may strike some as a little too laid
back but feels to me like an aural massage with an edge of frisson, melanie de
biasio’s ‘the flow’ is a rich delight indeed:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVHo8QOsAoU">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVHo8QOsAoU</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">the new album ‘no deal’ with it’s scott
walker-like cover is out april 28<sup>th</sup></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">this next amorphous beauty was brought to my
attention by the marvelous chris besinger of one of my favourite bands STNNNG.
It’s a collaboration between alex chilton of big star/the box tops and alan
vega of suicide made back in 2002 called 'cubist blues'. for real. is it great? is it terrifying? you
know the answer to both questions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bixpOV25pVs&sns=fb">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bixpOV25pVs&sns=fb</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">“that’s cool alex” says vega. he’s damn
right. vega’s shuddering elvisisms and chilton’s random chord strikes create a
menacing atmosphere that flirts with tunefulness but ultimately ends up going home
and fucking The Void. far out.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">chris besinger messaged to say: "</span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">W/r/t "Cubist Blues" it actually came out in 1996, about the peak of my obsession with all things Alan Vega. I recall my friend Matt & I trying to figure out if it was the actual Alex Chilton, it seemed so weird and unlikely. This was all pre-internet and information was murky at best. The record was released to zero fanfare, but it's one that my opinion of has really grown over the yrs. The 2002 reissue has a live recording that's worth tracking down as well."</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">next up are a real treat of a bratpop band
from cincinatti called the tweens. led by 21-yr old bridget battle (hey why
not, I know a guy whose surname is death) they’ve toured with breeders and are
readying their debut album for release on french kiss on april 7<sup>th</sup>. the few songs I’ve heard are ALL killer – buzzing, fizzing hits every last one
of ‘em, like sucking up a bag of pop rocks into a mouthful of cherry coke. that
good.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">here’s the video for be mean which boasts some
serious r stevie moore vibes:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cqje7qSbcI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cqje7qSbcI</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">get that chorus right in you then head here
for more ting: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.tweensband.com/">www.tweensband.com</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">london’s omi palone sound a little bit like
the chills so they win for me – tuneful, sometimes droning punk with upfront
raggedy riffs and fall-apart drums.</span> this is the first I’ve heard of them but
they’ve got hooks, they like the same gear as me and this is a free download
for you:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://onebeatdigital.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=dbf9d104f4e73212f58498d38&id=dd01e3421b&e=92721d8b52" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; cursor: pointer; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 19.09090805053711px; text-align: center;" target="_blank">https://soundcloud.com/faux-discx/omi-palone-shallow-divide</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">check out tour dates and what-not here: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/omipalone">www.facebook.com/omipalone</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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are you liking what you hear? am i hearing what i should? let me know xm</div>
<!--EndFragment-->michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-28103681905309164322014-03-05T05:12:00.000-08:002014-03-05T06:47:27.168-08:00some songs, some words about the songshaving ignored this blog for over a year i'm now redoubling my slack efforts to show it some love and post more regularly.<br />
<br />
here are some songs i've really enjoyed recently, i hope you like 'em too - let me know.<br />
<br />
<br />
london 4-piece teleman have already toured with suede, have shows lined up with franz ferdinand and a record in their back pocket produced by bernard butler (you know him, used to be in the tears) so they hardly need me to put them over BUT this is a beautiful little springtime tune that lies somewhere between a tune-bothering eno and a stoned hefner. you can almost smell the cherry blossom...<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/moshimoshimusic/teleman-lady-low">https://soundcloud.com/moshimoshimusic/teleman-lady-low</a><br />
<br />
it's taken from the aforementioned upcoming album and they are playing a fuckton of shows from may onward - go here for the details: <a href="http://www.telemanmusic.com/">www.telemanmusic.com</a><br />
<br />
last weekend my band had the pleasure of playing horse party's album launch show at the hunter club in bury st edmunds. horse party were, as usual, outstanding but what struck me most about the night was the brilliant local band keys. with the oldest of their number clocking in at a staggering 17 years old these cheeky fuckers knocked the place dumb with their savage, funk-fuelled take on early fall sounds. this tune came out last year and doesn't quite do them justice - it seems they are getting better all the time - but should whet the appetite for upcoming live shows. which i insist you must attend for reasons of joy and sanity. they're among the bands that have had the most instant impact on me in a live setting in a good few years.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/soundandvisionpr/keys-innocuous-beats">https://soundcloud.com/soundandvisionpr/keys-innocuous-beats</a><br />
<br />
<br />
find them on facebook here: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RustyKeysBand">https://www.facebook.com/RustyKeysBand</a><br />
<br />
speaking of horse party here's the eerie as tits new viddleo for their tune 'clarion call'<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ0htiX94MQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ0htiX94MQ</a><br />
<br />
it's another sultry, switchblade sharp release from a band who get some nice "fleetwood mac meets fugazi" comparisons but who to me, at their best, sound like an even filthier afghan whigs with nick mccabe on guitar. plus they are terrible dickheads in real life - i think they think that makes them rock n roll.<br />
<br />
their album 'cover your eyes' is available to order on that fucking i-tunes here: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/cover-your-eyes/id827101282">https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/cover-your-eyes/id827101282</a><br />
<br />
find out about them and their shows here: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/horsepartyparty">https://www.facebook.com/horsepartyparty</a><br />
<br />
chicago's 1970s undergrounders junction have a song on the new amateur D&D-themed psych compilation 'darkscorch canticles' which accompanies an actual rpg named 'cities of darkscorch'. i have next to no idea what's going on here, how insane this all is or how seriously it's meant to be taken - but who cares when you get a simple bit of retro garage-psych like this?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/numerogroup/junction-sorcerer/">https://soundcloud.com/numerogroup/junction-sorcerer/</a><br />
<br />
groovy, right?<br />
<br />
find out more: <a href="http://www.numerogroup.com/">http://www.numerogroup.com/</a><br />
<br />
brooklynite josh mease releases under the name 'lapland' and, as you might expect, this track has a twinkling electronica/acoustica feel and a breathy bon iver vocal - but it also has a gorgeous melody to separate it neatly from the rest of the "atmospheric"soundalikes knocking around that part o' the world these days.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/teamclermont/unwise">https://soundcloud.com/teamclermont/unwise</a><br />
<br />
the more i listen to it, the more i fall a little bit in love. good times.<br />
<br />
send me songs if you think i might be into it, i'm on twitter: @michaeljamesh<br />
<br />
xm<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-13193912223142395002012-12-18T05:19:00.000-08:002012-12-18T05:19:05.564-08:00CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? (obvious title apologies)
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">STEVE ALBINI TRANSCRIPT</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">it's been an amazing and humbling year for me as a writer both of and about music and i've had the privilege of speaking to or meeting with a good few of my musical heroes along the way. obviously albini was a big deal for me - he personifies everything that i love about approaching music and business with integrity, and also most things about how i love music to sound. he has a fierce reputation but in fact the most fierce thing about him is his intellect - he's a funny, eloquent and well-informed man who just happens to be the best in the world at what he does.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">so, here, for those who have an interest, is a little christmassy treat - a complete transcript of a near-hour long conversation with the man i casually refer to as 'our glorious leader' at any given opportunity. have a great xmas and thanks for reading my work. xm </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">(obviously this was previously published in massively abbreviated form on Q Magazine online and took place a few weeks before the shellac curated atp festival)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q:How the devil are you?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S:I’m good. What’s up?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: I’m good. I’ve just been killing time
watching a really depressing documentary about serial killers. What are you
working on today?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Today is my weekly day off and so mostly
what I do is interviews for people and/or office work and/or try to deal with
shit in my personal life. My wife and I bought a house so the house is
currently under renovation so there’s a lot of bullshit involved with trying to
raise money to pay for that and try to figure out what parts of the house we
can live without them being fixed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: That doesn’t sound like the most fun in
the world admittedly…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Well any time you can see something
developing into something more awesome it’s really cool. So we bought this
house that was obviously a cool house a hundred years ago but it had slid into
disrepair and so now we’re trying to resurrect what was cool about it. It’s a
long and expensive process.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: But sounds like it will be really
satisfying…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: When it’s all over with I’ll be living
in a really cool house and that makes me happy and excited.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q:As it should. What’s the next thing that
you’re recording at work there?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: There’s a band from China coming in
today but they don’t start until tomorrow. I’ll be working on them for a week
and then I leave for Australia at the beginning of next week.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: So is it from Australia back to the
States?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: We’re in Australia for two weeks. Is it
two weeks or ten days? Something like that. Then back to the US, then I work
for a while then we’re playing the atp show in the uk then I don’t think the
band has anything else booked in terms of shows. We’re planning on doing some
recording this fall but that’s all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: So 20 years of Shellac. Are you feeling
proud and filled with joy?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Well it’s kind of cool. As a band we’ve
never really ever had any goals as a band. We just wanted to pursue a process
and when you see things that way you’re not as aware of milestones. You’re not
as aware that you’ve done anything for a certain period of time or…like I don’t
know how many shows we’ve played. We might have played our 3000<sup>th</sup>
show and not had any champagne moment. It’s not really that big of a deal to
us. It’s nice to realize you had a core group of ideas that you committed
yourself to when you started the band and that those ideas are still valid,
still seem valid and that it still seems like it’s worth pursuing you know? And
the way we operate within the band has proven to be very sustainable. Like the
band doesn’t make demands of any of us. We basically pursue the band when we
have time and when opportunities present themselves so that means we’re never
frustrated by the band or we never feel like the band is obliging us to do
anything . I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve lasted as long as we have is
that we have no cause to resent the band. A lot of people get into a band and
the band by default becomes their career and in that sense it’s a job and
everybody resents his job you know? I mean I have a great job. I run this
recording studio and I make records every day, it’s a totally great job. I get
to see and do really satisfying, really exciting things every day but still I
relish my days off and I resent the intrusion of my job into my life you know?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Yeah, that makes sense. So it’s like the
band serves you as members rather than you serving some kind of Shellac machine?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah, I mean a lot of bands feel like
their band is their means to an end you know? ‘The band is how we’re going to
get famous’, ‘The band is how we’re going to get rich’, ‘The band is how we’re
going to see the world’ and for us the band is it’s own very satisfying
enterprise. It’s not a tool for anything else and the satisfaction we get out
of playing in Shellac is unique for r all of us. There’s nothing else in my
life that I get to do that’s as satisfying to my creative impulse as being in
Shellac so it’s the difference between doing something for it’s own sake and
doing something as a means to an end. For us, Shellac is really all it needs to
be.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Being part of something where the
process is it’s own end is a really rare thing. It sounds like you enjoy it. Is
the Shellac experience still an ongoing process?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah, I love every minute with Bob and Todd.
Every minute, every second that we’re playing, every minute on tour. I
occasionally hear pity stories from bands that say they’re tired of being on
tour or ‘making this record has been such a drag and it’s been so challenging
and so difficult’ and that just sounds like nonsense to me. That sounds like
pure bullshit. Being on tour is awesome. You go from town to town where you’re
treated like a fucking hero; somebody makes a nice meal for you; you go to a
place that’s set up for you to play your music in and then you play your music
in front of people who want to see it? What an amazing experience!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Who could ask for more?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah, I’m just trying to picture how
that could be a drag. The only thing that I can come up with is that if you do
it too much, like if your diet consists of cotton candy then eventually you’re
going to hate cotton candy. It’s like they say ya know, picture the most
beautiful, sexy woman on earth and there’s some guy that’s totally fed up with
her bullshit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q; it’s a cliché for a reason?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah, it is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: It seems to work the same way for the
fans. You don’t play or release too regularly but when I’ve spoken to fans
before for instance at the Jersey show at the bowling alley people treated it
like a special event. It’s a special treat. I think that appeal is almost
unique to Shellac because it feels like a rarity to see the band…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: I guess on an individual basis..how
often do we play in New Jersey? I guess it’s pretty rare. We’re not monks
though, we do play 5 or so weeks a year. That’s not a lot of touring or a lot
of shows from a “pro band” standpoint but if you take into consideration that
it’s a hobby for us it’s quite a bit of indulgence for a hobby ya know? And we
don’t necessarily play in one place often but over time we eventually have
gotten to see a lot of the world. We have played in a lot of different places. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: You get to most places in the end…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah it’s like anything else. You don’t
need to fuck all the women in one night.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Words of wisdom, thank you. With those
early morning shows – like the New Year’s Day show in London it felt like a
little endurance test. Does it put a smile on your face to see all the hungover
fuck-ups crawling through the door?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: We’ve done several New Year’s Day shows.
We’ve done one in Chicago, one in London and there’s something awesome about
seeing people who got the bright idea whilst steaming drunk that they were gonna
stay up all night and go see another show in the morning. You see them in the
morning and fatigure has set in and if they hadn’t already bought the tickets
they wouldn’t have bothered ya know? You see these people and they’re just
completely fried and then the contrast between them and the bright and chipper
early risers who are there saying ‘I’m so pleased we’re getting to see you guys
‘cos I work nights and I wouldn’t have ever gotten to see you otherwise’…the
contrast between them is really great, it’s a really nice dynamic. To see
people who are dressed up for a party but obviously totally through with
partying for the evening? And they’re the ones like ‘Ah, could you just turn it
down a little?’, like ‘Do you have to be exhuberant right here? I’m just gonna
go in the back’…It’s a nice pairing for an audience. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Another thing we’ve discovered – we play
morning shows whenever it’s convenient to because there’s a really nice
sensation about playing this show and you have this whole really satisfying
experience and then you pack up your stuff and you load the van and you realize
it’s fucking noon and you have the whole day ahead of you and that’s awesome ya
know? There’s something really nice about that so we do that when we can. But
the other thing that’s cool about it is you get little kids at a daytime show.
7, 8, 9 year old kids come to shows that are in the middle of the day. I guess
it’s because they can get dropped off and then picked up afterward? The typical
suburban experience of dropping the kids off at a movie or whatever except it
happens to be a rock show ya know? I think that’s such a great segment of an
audience to have ‘cos young kids have completely unvarnished responses to
things. Like if you say something stupid they’ll laugh at it and they’ll tell
you you’re stupid and if they get involved in the show it’s a really genuine
unfiltered response. I really like that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Moving to ATP – how did Shellac become
involved with ATP? You’ve played a LOT of shows for them now. Can you tell me a
little bit about how that came about?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah. All of us had been in bands for
some time by the time Shellac started and all of us had experience with
festivals. When I was in Big Black, Big Black had played a couple of festivals
and my perspective on festivals was that they just sucked. They were no fun as
a patron because you are not being treated well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The acoustics were bad. As a band you felt the whole thing
was being done pro forma like ‘well I guess we have to let these bands play’
and the conventional festival atmosphere was a pretty rotten one. It wasn’t a
celebration of music it was kind of a means of extracting ticket money from an
audience and with as minimal effort on behalf of their comfort or the
experience of seeing music or the dignityof the people in the bands ya know…it
was an unpleasant experience to play at a festival. It was an unpleasant
experience to be a t a festival<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and when we started the band we decided we just weren’t going to play
festivals. We were approached about playing All Tomorrow’s Parties – at the
time it was called the Bowlie Weekender – we were approached and we said ‘no,
we don’t do festivals. Then we were approached again by Barry Hogan and he said
‘this is really different, this is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>not like a regular festival. There’s someone curating the bands so the
bands are all good; the bands and the audience live together in the same holidy
camp environment so everybody has a roof over their head, everybody has
priovacy but everybody can still mingle with everybody; it’s not a bunch of tents
in a field and it’s not disparate venues where people never rub elbows – it’s
actually like a nice ???’commons’???? (16 MINS). We were like ‘that’s nice but
no, we don’t do festivals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we
got talked into it. I forget but I think the first time we played we were asked
to play by Mogwai and I think Bob had an extended conversation with dudes in
Mogwai about ATP<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and they
convinced him that it really was gonna be a different kind of experience and so
we said ‘well, ya know, if this is somebody really trying to change the game
then it’s worth supporting so maybe we should give it a shot and just try it
once and if it sucks it sucks and we don’t do festivals. But if it’s good ya
know it could be a bellweather ofg things getting better. So we tried. We
played one ATP. WE HAD A GOOD TIME EVERYTHING<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>everybody was saying about it was true – that is that the
cohabitation between the bands and the audience was really nice, the fact that
it’s a very convivial atmosphere…we felt like the patrons were being treated
much better than they were at a conventional off-site festival and then the curated
aspect of it…all the bands a re being vouched for by somebody? YA KNOW LIKE
THERE’S someone whose taste you could have an opinion about saying ‘I RECOMMEND
YOUS EE these bands, they’re good, I’ve picked them all for you’ you it’s like
it’s a very, if you think about it, a totally intuitive way of structuring a
festival and it’s kind of incredible that no-one had done that as standard practice
ya know?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q; Yeah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: We tried it, played one of the ATPs, had
a great time. Barry asked us to curate, we did, it was a lot of work in that we
were bringing bands to England that for the most part no-one in England had
ever heard of. So people were essentially having to trust our judgment about
all these bands. So there wasn’t a lot of star power for the ATP that we curated.
There wasn’t a lot of ya know headliner type attraction. PEOPLE WERE REALLY
HAVING TO GO OUT ON A LIMB IN TERMS OF TRUSTING Our judgment and the fact that
the responses were so uniformly goomade us feel a lot better not just about the
idea of the festival but about the readiness of an audience to participate in a
festival like that. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">And since then we’ve just basically every
time ATP has proposed something we’ve tried to do it. Both because we now have
a very longstanding very like healthy relationship with everybody that works in
the Atp herarchy but also because ATP just has a really good batting average of
delivering whjat they say they’re going to deliver more often than not. There
are things that fall through, shit that they propose that doesn’t happen ‘cos
either sales don’t warrant it or they lose a bunch of money and they have to
cut something out a know but I would much rather have people try ambitious
stuff and blow it now and again than just to do something that’s ya know
completely bankable, never-fail kind of no risk involved thing. It’s like they
say there has to be like<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a degree
of pretension, arrogance and ambition in order for anything awesome to happen.
If those things aren’t there then the chances are the experience is gonna be
pretty mundane. And ive had really fantastic experiences at ATP. I’ve seen
amazing stuff and just the fact that I’ve been in the company of people who were
just as enthusiastic about something as I was or I’ve gotten to see people’s
eyes opened to stuff. Like, we brought a, the first time we curated ATP we
brought a performer called Philip Roebuck, no it was the second time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s a one man band. He pl;ays the
banjo and sings and has a bass drum strapped to his back and I mean he’s a
street performer and he’s made his living as a street performer for years. And
there’s no reason to think that anyone in England would ever have heard of him
or been interested in seeing something like that if you described it to them as
I’m describing it to you now it sounds stupid ya know? He’s a guy that plays
banjo and has a bass drum and a tambourine strapped to his back. That sounds
dumb<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when I say that to you. But
he is totally captivating performer and he set up outside the pub one night at
ATP and just did busking for an hour or whatever and having an environment set
up where that was even possible validated the whole experience to me. Seeing a
guy who would not have been able to get to Englan don his own steam getting in
front of an audience that was open minded enough to totally appreciate him and
that they directly supported him like ‘here, you are awesome right now, let me
throw ten pounds in your cup’ you know that kind of thing. That was really
satisfying.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: So how come it’s taken ten years between
this curation and the last one? Is it the workload?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Well it’s a lot of work if you’re trying
to do it diligently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We probably
wouldn’t have done it but ATP said that they would do a lot of the infrastructure
work that we took on ourselves the first time. The first time we did it we
contacted all of the bands , we interfaced with all the bands, we worked out
all the money deals with all the bands like we triedto make it so that the
whole thing was essentially us doing a festival with ATP organizing, well,
providing the resources for it. This time we said we’re all way too busy in our
lives to do something like that again so we wi;l suggest the bands and we will
do whatever we can to interface with the bands but by and large you’re going to
have to do all the grunt work. And they said ‘fine, that’s what we did for
everybody else’ so…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Result, that’ll do…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: I see a tremendous amount of value in
ATP personally, for instance being exposed to one of the bands you’ve booked
this year Mono, that was like some fucking insane spiritual experience or
something…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Well Mono’s one of those bands who have
the capability, the potential to do a really transcendent show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even when they’re just playing their
regular set it’s awesome and then every now and again they’ll do something
really special and just uncork a complete mind-melter of a show and I would
like to have as many trials as possible in the hopes of having that happen for
as many people as possible..</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Absolutely. What I was gonna say was
that one thing ATP gets accused of is with the ‘Don’t Look Back’ shows, or
shows where bands play the whole album in order, is retro-fetishism and maybe
they’re feeding into that culturally. You’ve resisted any temptation or offers
for Big Black or Rapeman to reform…will you continue to resist? Do you see a
problem with retroism?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Now that…well there are two things at
play there. There are certain bands that had a classic line-up that delivered
an album that was life-changing for people and getting to see that band play
that record is I think a totally understandable desire on the part of people
whose lives were changed by a single record and I don’t think that that’s
overstating it at all. When I got to see The Stooges play Fun House it was
quite legitimately one of the best musical experiences of my life and I can’t
argue…if I had some sort of a philosophical objection to it at some point prior
to that I cant maintain that objection with a straight face now having been
through that experience and having seen it happen. When it clicks and when it
is awesome it is so awesome it’s worth any carrying on, you know whatever
inertia to the development of culture or whatever – it’s worth it on a personal
level for me to have seen that ya know? So ..or seeing Television play Marquee
Moon? Those were great experiences for me as a listener and as a fan
so..Granted they are kind of gimmicky, graned that you’re kind of denying
whatever achievements those people have made in the interim, all those things
are true and all those reservations people have about those things are totally
true but last year I saw John Cale perform the Paris 1919 album with a rock
band and a chamber orchestra and it was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fuckin’
awesome</i> ya know? Like I understand the critical resistance to that as a
concept and my bands are not into doing it just…Shellac isn’t into doing it
because we’re still an active band ya know? We’re not one of those bands that
needs to pull their shit back together after a hiatus in order to do this one
great thing. We’re still grinding it out so it doesn’t make sense for Shellac
to do it. The other bands that I have been in it doesn’t make sense to do it
because all those people are involved in other contemporary, current things and
also I think it might be kind of overstating the case that my bands were as
significant as those other bands that I’ve been talking about you know? So I
feel like that might be stretching the concept a bit farther than it warrants.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Really?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yes. But, regardless, the times that I
have seen something like that it has been fucking awesome and that’s because as
a listener I was removed from those people when they were doing it as
contemporary like when they were in the middle of doing that I wasn’t part of
their audience. I wasn’t old enough or I wasn’t where they were so I didn’t get
to see it, right? But I have seen a couple of those that were like that that
were fantastic, amazing experiences. I had a different experience watching Slint
play.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Slint was a band that I had seen during
their active period quite a few times I mean I’m friends with those guys, im
aware of their progression as a band and I saw it<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>happening in real time. So while it was sonically satisfying
to see them play that record in front of an audience that was there to see it it
was a different experience for me than I had with that band in their heyday and
it was an uncomfortable experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ll go as far as to say that I didn’t like it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Is that related to motivation in some
way?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: No, not at all. I understand that that’s
an argument a lot of people make, they say ‘oh this band is doing it for the
money’ and I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I don’t think people would
bother doing all the things that are necessary to resurrect a band purely for
money. I don’t think anyone would do that. It’s just too much work, and it’s
emotionally taxing and it requires people to reorganize their lives and
basically they don’t print money big enough to get people to do that, ok? So I
think that argument is kind of fallacious. Im sure the money is a motivating
factor on some lvel but that’s not the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> reason
</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that they’re doing it, right?
So there’s that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But I saw Slint play that music when it was
boiling out of them organically as a real time event ya know and to see them do
it as a kind of a revue or as a stage show where they actually had to involve
additional members and where things that were originally spontaneous had to be
rehearsed and scripted and things that were ya know, music that was never
intended to be performed live was now having to be performed live in a way that
mimics the experience of someone listening to a record in a basement ya know.
It just seemed like an alien representation of something that I was already
familiar with ya know? It’s like one of those, like when you see those giant
fibre glass Jeff Koontz sculpture of a cartoon character or Marilyn Monroe or
something and it’s made into an alienthing, this representation of something
that may already mean something to you on a personal level .</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Having said all of that if my relationship
with that record, with the Slint ‘Spiderland’ record was the same as my
relationship with Television’s Marquee Moon or with TheStooges Fun House, if I
had had a different relationship with that record I would have fuckin’ loved
that show. I know I would have. So I encouraged everybody who never got a
chance to see that band to go to those shows and to see that band do that set
because I knew for them it would be an awesome experience and that…owing to the
specifics of my experience with that band and my experience with those people,
owing to those unique specifics I didn’t get very much out of it. But I
recognize absolutely that that is not a failing on the part of Slint and not a
filing on the part of that endeavour – it is purely 100% to do with the
circumstances of my exposure to that band back in the day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: So it’s all circumstantial?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: ‘Cos I never got to see Slint the first
time around and when they reformed I couldn’t resist going and it was amazing –
I guess because I have a totally different relationship…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah, yeah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Let me ask you about a new Shellac
record…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Sure</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Is that something that’s likely to
happen sooner rather than later?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: We’ve been basically prepared to record
another record for a couple of years now. We just don’t get our shit together
to finish stuff off and finish recording. We’ve finished recording half a dozen
songs. We have another half dozen that we’re prepared to record when the
opportunity comes up. We just haven’t done it yet. I suspect that all of our
time is pretty well spoken for through the end of the year so we probably won’t
be able to put time aside to record until the early part of 2013 and then once
we’ve finished the record then it’ll come out in however long it takes for
records to come out so…I don’t know how long that is…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It could be..it’s like a week right?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Yeah I think it’s a week.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Or it’s a year? I don’t know. Somewhwere
between a week and a year then.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: You just put it on Bandcamp and that’s
it I think – it’s out then…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: (Laughs) Yeah, that’s right. We’re
almost certainly just gonna release the record through Touvch and Go just like
we’ve done with all our other records, Touch and Go has already said they will
do it</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: That was gonna be my next question…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: That’s a satisfying thing so…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: The tunes you’ve been playing live over
the last few years like ‘You Came In Me’ – will they be on the record?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Unless we can’t pull ‘em off then yeah.
I mean ‘You Came In Me’ we already recorded that one and that one came out fine
so that one’s almost certainly going to make it onto the record. There’s a song
called ‘Dude Incredible’. We recorded tat, that one came out fine. That’s [probably
gonna make it to the record. There’s a song called ‘Compliant’…a lot of them
are working titles that I don’t’ ..we may or may not stabilize with. I mean
we’ve got a solid..in the sets we’ve been playing lately we’ve played I think 8
or so of the songs that have yet to be released on records.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: ‘Compliant’ sounded huge at Primavera last
year..a great song…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Oh, thank you. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: You’ve played the ATP stage at Primavera
a few times?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Uh-huh. That’s another scenario. The Primaverasound
festival is a good example of a festival that couldn’t have been possible
without the way that ATP changed the landscape for festivals. It’s a curated
festivsl, it’s done with much more resources behind it than ATP so it has some
corporate involvement which particularly, personally I’m not that comfortable
with but I understand that doing something on that scale people can talk
themselves into doing all kinds of things and we have a lot of time for
????FRAR?????(36 MINS) the guy that organizes the festival. We have a lot of
time for him again because he’s been very over the years, very forthcoming with
us about how thoings go and like the experience that Primaverasound provides to
the patrons is just so much better than the usual standard of what people had
grown to expect from festivals. The atmosphere is so nice and convivial</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: It is something special isn’t it?
Compared to UK festivals…not to blanket badmouth them but in comparison to
Reading or something like that it’s a whole different world isn’t it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah and like I said I think you can
directly thank ATP for changing the landscape and proving you can do something
was co-operative and collaborative and treated people decently, you could do
that sustainably over an extended period of time. Year after year you could do
it and that it would be successful on business terms as well as cultural terms.
I think that you can thank ATP for demonstrating that to people and making it
so that the whole landscape of the touring business has changed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: It slipped my mind – I was meaning to
ask about you curating ATP – there was a rumour you were trying to book Fugazi.
Is that bullshit?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah. We would have loved to have
something like that happen but it’s not going to happen. Fugazi has their own
thing. When Fugazi was an active band we invited them to play an ATP and they
had a very similar ‘we don’t do festivals’ policy within their band that we
had. And we were unsuccessful in convincing them to play the ATP that we curated.
But the fact that they were willing to consider it? I think made us feel really
good. Like we hadn’t missed the mark by that much ya know?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Do you think that your status as a
public figure…wow that sounds silly now…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Why would you…Doesn’t it sound
ridiculous when<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you say that?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: It looked fine written down..</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: (Laughs)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Do you think it overshadows sometimes?
Does it overshadow your work? Does it make you uncomfortable to be in the
spotlight like that?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: What makes me uncomfortable is you
saying the words ‘public figure’. That made me uncomfortable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Yeah, me too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: I mean I interact with other people, I
interact with everybody in my studio, in my life and my business. I interact
with all these people immediately and directly every day. And those are the
relationships that matter to me. The ones where im actually doing something
directly with someone else. I’m in their presence, I’m talking to them, they
have a perspective on me that I think is 100% valid ‘cos I’m interacting with
them directly. If I disappoint one of those people I feel terrible. If I do
something for one of those people that helps them out and makes things go
smoothly I feel great, right? What some person I’ve never met, who has no
interaction with me types up about me and posts on his blog or twitter or email
or magazine or ya know television? I could not give a shit what those people
say. They have nothing to do with me or my life. To the degree that they impose
themselves on my life by calling me up and needling me about stuff or making a
public spectacle out of some trivial aspect of my relationship with somebody
else…like when to the degree that they try to impose themselves on my life I
try to deal with that as succinctly as I can. If there’s trouble brewing, if
there’s some kind of a beef developing I try to explain myself so that I don’t
end up inadvertently fanning flames, right? If somebody says something in the
media where someone is portraying a position of mine as a rationale for arguing
with me or for calling me an ashole or whatever…if someone is portraying a
position of mine and that position is nonsense – that is if it’s made up and
doesn’t reflect my actual position on something then if I’m aware of it and if it’s
gonna cause me trouble then I try to straighten ‘em out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">If I’m not aware of it then obviously it
doesn’t matter and if it doesn’t cause me any trouble obviously it doesn’t
matter. But when someone makes it their business to tell the rest of the world
what<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> I </i>think about something then it
becomes incumbent on me to straighten that person out if they’re wrong or misc-characterising
it or providing information that’s going to interfere with my life or somebody
else’s life…so, I’ll assume that you’re making reference to this Amanda Palmer
business? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q; I wasn’t specifically</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S; Yeah, you fucking were. Come on…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Genuinely.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Oh, alright.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: I had a couple of questions that are
about Amanda Palmer that I was going to ask next though…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah sure ok. What it all boils down to
is this – I was unaware of the existence of an Amanda Palmer until something
came up on the forum of the studio messageboards, so I briefly acquainted
myself with the controversy and then I spouted off about it. And then that
became a topic of discussion in the greater music media which kind of blows my
mind but it did. So I flet obliged to deal with that. And dealing with that
took up waaaay too much of my energy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: It got out of hand really quickly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah, so I mean I tired to explain
myself to the point where people won’t misunderstand why im saying what im
saying<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>or, in fact, what I’ve said
in the first place but if someone is determined to misunderstand something then
there’s not much you can do to straighten ‘em out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Why do you think it is that some
sections of the media want to portray you in this very negative light? What have
you done to piss these people off?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: I don’t know. I guess the simplest way
to look at it is that a lot of people who are trying to make a name for themselves
or trying to get their stuff read, they want to have some kind of controversy
to draw people into it. And if they can manufacture a controversy out of
something that’s not controversial then that’s like a win for them. They’ve
done something. And so in a couple of instances I’ve said things off the cuff
or with less consideration than I probably should have that created an
opportunity to paint something as a controversy. Or, if there’s…it’s like they
say there’s no drama without conflict so…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: If you end up having a legacy that says
‘this was the guy that make records for Nirvana or Pixies’ – is that something
you are comfortable with?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Sure, it doesn’t particularly concern me
who remembers me. Again, those are people that I haven’t met, those are people
that I’m not dealing with right now. I just want to do a good job for the
people I’m working with today and make sure their experience is a rewarding one
and do that often enough? The rest will take care of itself. You know, if you
do a good job for people again and again you’ll get repeat business and you’ll
leave a good memory for people so that’s from a professional standpoint that’s
what I’m trying to do for people. Trying to make sure they get their money’s
worth and if they have bad experiences in the music scene then I’m not one of
them you know?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: So it’s just a case of help not harm?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah – I wanna make sure they got their
money’s worth, that they got the job done that they needed to get done and
along the way nobody took advantage of them, ya know?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: And that’s regardless of what you might
think of a band? You use the John Peel quote about him thinking if he didn’t
like a record it didn’t mean it was bad just that he didn’t get it – that a
band wouldn’t bother unless they thought it was worth it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Yeah, nobody’s gonna save up their money
and come into the studio in order to record something that they don’t think is
worthwhile. Doesn’t make any sense. So everything everybody brings into the
studio to record – of course they think it’s worthwhile, of course they think
it’s ‘grade a material’ and I have to respect that and make sure they
understand that I’m taking them seriously and doing my best. So I think forming
an opinion about the music I’m recording in that moment is counter-productive.
Whether it was a positive or negative opinion it’s counter-productive like if
I’m just sitting there with my tongue lolling out rapt at the beauty of this
thing that’s happening in the studio then I’m not going to be paying proper
attention to everything else. I’m not going to be making sure that we don’t run
out of tape or that the vocal microphone isn’t distorting or the headphone
feeds aren’t cutting out or…there’s a million things to pay attention to in the
studio that if you don’t keep your p’s and q’s in order you can totally blow it
and ruin a session. My first obligation id to not blow it, ya know? So it
literally does not matter what kind of music someone wants to make in the
studio, it will affect some of the specifics of my job but I thinks it’s an
enormous mistake for someone who works on a technical level to try to validate
the music that he works on in an aesthetic way. I think that’s an enormous
mistake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>of the ways people end up getting saddled with these
transitory studio gimmicks that you hear a lot like the…you’ll hear production
gimmicks or um…recording techniques or like musical inventions that become
clichés of a certain era, ya know? And one of the reasons that happens is
because someone in the studio thinks he’s helping out by saying ‘Hey why don’t
we do that autotune Akon vocal thing on this? That’ll be cool’ and then for the
rest of their career the band has to carry that bullshit around with them
because of something somebody stuck on their record. So I feel like there’s a big<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>impulse on the part of people in the
studio to help out and improve things and make stuff better but I think that’s
a super-dangerous impulse. I think it’s way easier to knock somebody off a
trajectory that was uniquely theirs and that was going to be perfectly valid
than it is to straighten them out so they now fly directly into the sun ya know?
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Last question; As a famous son of
Chicago how come you don’t have a pizza or a sandwich named after you when CM
Punk has a pizza named after him? Isn’t it time for The Albini?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Who has that?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: CM Punk, the wrestling champion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: Ah! I did not know that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, no, although there was a really
great music bar in Chicago called The Lounge Acts. It closed like 10-12 years
ago but they used to do a thing where they would invite people to come and play
records from their record collection and ..not really a DJ night but they would
invite people to play records from their record collection. And they did it for
a bunch of local musicians and sometimes even faous bands would do it and just
as a way of showing off what cool records they had you know? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">For example Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick
had a bunch of Todd Rundgren bootlegs and really obscure 60s and 70s prog rock
records he was really proud of so he was playing those …Bunny Carlos, who was
the drummer for Cheap Trick, played a night where he played almost exclusively
old Stax and Volt and Motown and old soul records like really obscure,
interesting old soul and funk records that he was fond of. Various different
people in town did it and they asked me to do it and one of the gimmicks of the
night was that for the night you were<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>there playing records you had a signature drink. And the signature drink
was printed up on a menu and you could order it at the bar. My friend Cory Rusk
who is the owner of Touch & Go Records, he did a DJ night where he played a
bunch of really cool punk and hardcore singles from the later 70s and early
80s. his DJ night was fantastic and his signature drink was my favourite of all
of the signature drinks. The Cory Rusk was a black coffee, a glass of tap water
and a cinnamon candy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">(Much laughter)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The particular cinnamon candy that he liked
was called The Atomic Fireball so you’d get an atomic fireball, a glass of tap
water and a black coffee. I thought that was pretty good. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">My signature drink was a pint glass full of
ice with ginger ale and a splash of angostura bitters. Which was the drink that
I would drink in the absence of booze. That’s what I would always drink in a
bar. Ginger ale and bitters – it’s delicious. Yeah, I haven’t…I stopped
drinking a long, long time ago but I still go to bars now and again and it’s
nice to have something to drink.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Q: Steve, it’s been an honour to speak to
you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">S: That’s very flattering, thank you. Bye.</span></div>
michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-52093593729982911932012-11-29T02:38:00.000-08:002012-11-29T02:38:03.510-08:00swans forever x
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">after the third of three nights in three
cities across the uk those were the words I found to scribble large on a piece of
old receipt paper and lodge between the wiper and the windowscreen of their
tour van.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldnt think of a
better way to put it then and I still can’t now. all i’ll do is tap up the
notes i took over this three day adventure and see what we have on the page. Whatever
it is, it won’t convey nearly well enough what it is that I felt and saw. i’m
now almost two days away from that last uk set and i’m still dumbfounded,
half-hypnotised, partly gone and partly lusting for another fix. it’s a filthy
obession.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">london, koko, thursday</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">the easy part. the show is only 45 minutes
from home and at a venue, however sonically shoddy and impossible the
sight-lines may be, that’s at least familiar and i’m used to the weird,
maze-like layout. due to the nagging remnants of flu I’m already hanging off
the wall and clinging my nasty new ‘you fucking people make me sick’ t-shirt to
my chest by the time gira and his crew of gifted bludgeoners take the stage. the slow, graceful climbs of the balladeering ‘to be kind’ fill the hall,
ebbing over the massed and mostly silent (this is london let’s not forget –
cunts would be trying to talk over the end of the world if they thought their
coked-up mates could hear them and call it banter) huddle of humanity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The first few builds, dominant and mile
high as they are, are merely teasers for the main body of the set which comes,
following the mightily pitch-black atomic industrial shuffle of ‘coward’ , in
the shape of their recently lauded album title track ‘the seer’. more than
thirty minutes of insistent crescendo and diminuendo tease out and dispel
notions of time perception and of awareness. i find myself opening my eyes
(they were closed?) to see that i’m dancing, or that i’m swaying or have my
arms pointed directly at the ceiling. this, friends, is the good shit and exactly
the reason why i told the guy outside looking for mushrooms that he most
certainly didn’t need any.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">the power of repetition, volume and sheer
length shifts within this reality to resemble something close to illusion/magic
and as you stand with this music filling every part of you, it’s fair to say
that you are entirely of the experience and, most beautifully, immersed
thoroughly in the moment. gira seems to have found the secret to the snake oil
– he’s selling it to us and it’s working. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>during the cataclysmic closer ‘the apostate’, a jingle bell
rumble of stuttered utterances, broken murmurs, wailing and lost, lycanthropic
howls, i’m letting my mind empty and fill with whatever imagery the music wants
to suggest. it’s dark as hell in there, but brilliantly hopeful too – worlds
melt and are renewed, faces burn and become more beautiful, endurance becomes a
mystical trial. this is meditation through cacophony instead of silence. emptiness, clarity and then reconstruction. rock n roll, right?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">i forget my flu for the 2hr 45 minute set
duration and watch as a delighted gira introduces himself as justin bieber
before leaving the stage clearly sated and delighted. ‘what kind of band is
this?’ i wonder. they don’t fit into any current genre and they don’t ascribed
to a widely acknowledged aesthetic, sonic or otherwise. they’re stretching the
reality of rock music, re-shaping it in their own diabolical image. devilishly
wonderful, worryingly spiritual.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">glasgow, the arches, friday</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">the train to glasgow is early and the ride
taken on little to no sleep. I accompany the trip with ‘the seer’ and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘songs for the blind’. in beautiful,
bleak glasgow the long necked ones shall be housed beneath the railway tracks
in a miniature cavern of concrete and red brick. perfection. support act sir richard bishop’s intricate off-kilter acoustic blues are battered somewhat by
the metal band rehearsing/soundchecking in another nearby building but swans
will not suffer that fate…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">mr gira looks relaxed stood in a glasgow
gutter, white stetson atop his head (as if you didn’t know he’s one of the good
guys) and we talk a little bit about the koko show. was it ok? he enquires. between hysterical bursts of laughter i manage to assure him it was more than
ok. he’s unsure and felt they were a little rusty. i explain to him that Bannon
(bowling partner and fellow adventurer) has come all this way having never
heard swans before. he laughs heartily and promises that they’ll try to play a
good show. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">tonight’s is the loudest show I’ve been to in
over twenty years of concert-going. your lips, teeth and tip of your nose
vibrate. ‘avatar’ crashes against the walls, through the floors and directly
into your spine. people panic, hands cupped over their ears, desperately backing
away from the speakers; the bar is handing out earplugs. ‘your life is in my
hands…your mind is in my eye..’ croons gira, the room vibrating, near-crumbling
around him. yet as the set hits the halfway point and the volume is pulled down
a touch by the house engineers gira grows annoyed and expresses this in fairly
strong terms. having given hell to the engineers over the PA he takes a deep
slug of beer and assaults the next track. unfortunately during the opening of
what will be the set’s premature closer ‘nathalie’ gira can’t get his band into
the groove he wants. despite many attempts to show bassist chris pravdica
exactly how he should play it doesn’t match up to the sound gira has in his
head. This makes for not only an extremely angered reading of the song but also
a set that lacks the amazing ‘the apostate’ at its climax. though the band make
a show of glee and unity at the close it’s clear they’ve not hit the heights of
their own extremely lofty standards. by anyone else’s expectations this
explosive, tender set would be a career highlight – for swans it’s an off-night
of sorts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">manchester, sound control, Saturday </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">the slow train to Manchester and my head
fills with the much-loathed ‘the burning world’ (me? I like it) and ‘the great
annihilator’ , an enveloping, twisting swathe of music that entombs the
listener for its duration.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">the venue tonight is arrogantly oversold –
there’s not even the room to bring a drink to your lips once you’re in and some
can’t even get through the door and so spend the show on the interior stairs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">tonight swans are the sound of a pencil
being sharpened to an infinite point, growing ever sharper and more beautiful,
directly against your unprotected, soft, open eye. the artistry of modern european classical composition is used as a pair of sculpting hands to shape a
free and wild sound into a strict, teutonic, utterly perfect and stunningly
ugly whole.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">thought the set is very similar to the one
played at koko it seems to sink in and settle even more deeply and fully this
time around. whether chugging through primitive industrial, tiptoeing through
gorgeously crafted, mosaic-like devotionals or hammering you with endless, eye
and ear-filling sonic destruction they are simply flicking through the pages of
an book entirely consisting of different shades of black until finally there’s
nothing but absolute white, absolute light.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">it’s the transformation of exhaustion and
pain into transcendence and joy. people are fainting. i’m dancing again. the
whirl of guitar and double drums and rolling bass continues, a carousel with
the universe on display.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">in the bathroom on the floor below the
stage the pillars shake, paint crumbles from the ceiling and the mirrors
shudder. I join in laughing with an equally stunned, wordless crowd member.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">mr gira signs my book and tells me to take
good care of it. i smile the smile of the infinitely pleased and maybe even the
deluded. We sit outside and lucy speaks to thor and mr gira. Suddenly im up and
scribbling on that piece of paper and then im across the street sliding under
the wiper. ‘SWANS FOREVER X’ it says and that, when it comes down to it, is
exactly how the world feels to me right now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-85994789036722332452012-11-06T08:46:00.000-08:002012-11-07T02:41:24.329-08:00James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers Complete Transcript<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">this is the almost complete transcript (a couple of the more personal exchanges are edited for the sake of privacy) of the interview i conducted with james dean bradfield a couple of weeks back that appeared in abbreviated form for Q Magazine online recently. it's the most satisfying bit of music writing related work i think i've ever done and the whole conversation was a total joy. i hope that those of you interested enough to read the whole thing will let me know your thoughts on the piece. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Hello, is Michael there please?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: This is he, is this James?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: It is yes, how are you doing?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Very good mate, how are you?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Ah not too bad. Where are you from in
the pig’s head then?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Merthyr Tydfil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: A-ha! Gotcha! Got that straight away –
I wasn’t expecting that</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: It’s nice to hear a familiar accent
first thing in the morning…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: I’ve adopted that way of asking
brethren where they’re from ‘cos Italian Americans say ‘Where you from in the
boot?’ so now I always say ‘where you from in the pig’s head?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Excellent. Is this the first of many
today then?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: It is yes. But it’s alright, it’s
cool, it’s fine it’s nice to do stuff. It’s nice that ten albums in we’re still
doing it so I ain’t gonna fucking moan about it Mike, you know? Not at all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I’m glad. That’s good news.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: it’s really funny this because Michael
Hall is the brother of our manager Martin and he works in the office and
obviously you’ve got Mike Hall the ex Welsh rugby captain as well, it’s a
proper name…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: It’s a quality name, I’m happy with it</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: It’s slightly stately isn’t it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I’ve got James as a middle name as well
so that’s decent…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Ah, that’s beautiful. All good. You in
London or?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Yeah, I’ve got an hour out of my dayjob
to speak to you and just at this moment someone decides to repair the doors in
the hallway so drills and hammers going a full ten outside so if you hear
something like the apocalypse then that’s what it is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Right, I gotcha.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Lemme get some of these questions done
by here…20 years on from Generation Terrorists. Obviously from things Nicky
said at the time you didn’t imagine you’d last this long but did you personally
see the band as a careeer when you were making it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB:I didn’t think of it as a career but I
saw the band as something I never wanted to end. There was Nick and Richey’s
mission statement of one perfect album, sell sixteen million records and then
split up in a bout of self-immolation. I remember me and Shaun looking nervously
at each other thinking ‘No, no we wanna carry on!’ I think in the back of our
heads we looked at some of our favourite bands like Echo and The Bunnymen and
it was like if they had split up after their first album you wouldn’t hear
‘Heaven Up Here’, you wouldn’t hear ‘Porcupine’, you wouldn’t hear ‘Ocean Rain’
and then we thought to ourselves, and I remember me and Sean saying to each
other ‘If The Clash had split up after their first album you wouldn’t have
heard ‘London Calling’, ‘Sandanista’, ‘Combat Rock’. Obviously this big
monolithic statement of truth came crashing through the skies from Messrs
Edwards and Wire and I remember thinking ‘Nah, nah, nah – I hope it doesn’t
really come true’. We had to revert to plan b. We obviously weren’t going to
sell sixteen million records when Generation Terrorists was released so we kind
of failed by our own outrageous standards…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: It was a glorious failure though</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: I don’t know if it was glorious but it
was a monumental failure…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">(much laughter)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">…on a statistical front. But I’m kinda glad
rally because I can say all those things about Richey and Nicky being fucking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mental </i>and releasing these mission
statements but at the end of the day if I hadn’t had that fear hanging over my
head I don’t think ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ would have turned out like it did. I
don’t think ‘Little Baby Nothing’ would have turned out like it did. Ever since
then I’ve realized we’re motivated by a fear of failure. I think we were
indoctrinated into that way of thinking by Nicky and Richey at the start. In a
strange way it’s the best thing that ever happened to us, I think.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: So you were on a cliff edge at the
time? You were afraid that this might be your only shot?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: We’d announced our own greatness
without having much to back it up. Ever since then it’s been the same feeling.
I think that’s just good management skills…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Very motivating…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Yeah it’s almost like the coach of the
team…they (Nick and Rich)believe that they have talented players but they have
to motivate them, they have to put the fear of God into them. That early
strategy, that early madness, it set the standard I think.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: When did you realize that Manic Street
Preachers would be a huge part of your life? Like a lifelong thing?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: It was quite early on. We played a gig
– it was our first London gig, actually – in the Horse and Groom on Great
Portland Street and it was connected to a fanzine that Richey had been in touch
with and it was just a small dusty room above the pub. I remember seeing the
crowd and it was a really good trainspottery indie crowd ya know…people we had
an affinity with in a strange way because we’d been through the mill of being
into our Whitesnake, being into our June Brides, then Public Enemy and Guns N
Roses, our obsession with music up until that point – we were all about 20 –
had been absolutely rabid. It showed no signs of slowing down. We were
absolutely obsessed with all types of music. Suddenly we’re in front of this
crowd that are really knowledgeable, a strange cabal of people upstairs in this
pub watching this bunch of taff oiks for the first time. We played that gig and
we got an amazing reaction and I remember thinking ‘we must be one of the most
fucked up bands of all time’, you’ve got these two amazing wingers who are
absolutely amazing lyricists with Nick and Richey on either side of me, which
gave me amazing confidence, and then you had Sean behind me that had played in
Gwent Jazz Orchestra playing his trumpet and he’d played for the Colliery Band
and then you’ve got me, the Utilitarian ditch-digger in the front. I remember
thinking ‘we’re such a fucked up, original band’ At that point we didn’t have
any contemporaries from Wales. We felt like we were completely on our own.
Because Wales had been seen as a bit of a scourge in a cultural and economic
sense at that point and we just felt as if we were on our own in Wales and we
were on our own in Britain in the music scene in a sense. That sounds really
pompous and it’s not really true but that’s the way we felt at the time. I remember
thinking ‘We’re unstoppable because we’re different from everybody else’. I
didn’t think it was because we were better, it was because I thought we were
different – slightly more maladjusted, more idiosyncratic and out of step with
everything. I thought that was important. At the end of that gig – we’d played
in front of Bob Stanley, obviously a member of St Ettienne but he was also a
great journalist for Melody Maker at that point – and I remember thinking
‘we’ve found our place without even trying that hard’. I remember having some
sandwiches on the way home, going back to the valleys thinking ‘We’re gonna do
this…we’re gonna be fine, man!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: You’ve still got a place in Cardiff
haven’t you? Living in London but still got a place in Cardiff…?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: No, no, no. I live in Cardiff full
time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: You’re back completely? Ahhh…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: I’m back there, I’ve got my Cardiff
Blues season ticket, got my dog walking routes, take my boxer out with me…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Happy days</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: I’ve got the kid, got the garden, got
my butcher’s, got my bookies, got my newsagents – I’m back in the fatherland.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: What else could you need James?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: (Laughs) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Did the valleys inform a lot of your
early work?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: There’s an inevitable circuital route
you take when you’re young. You grow up in the place that you’re in and I don’t
know whether it’s your metabolism or your hormones rolling ‘round your body but
I think, especially young people who are mad about their music end up wanting
to escape the place they grew up. As soon as they leave it they spend the rest
of their lives trying to get back to it. That’s what happened with us. At the
start we were slightly embittered by the fact that all our fathers had told us
about the great things, the valleys culture where we grew up in terms of the Miner’s
Institutes that had been bought and paid for by the miners themselves, about
great writers like Gwyn Thomas and poets like John Almond who all came
from our area and the idea of the Chartist march…all those things had been
forced into us, we’d been taught about it. Suddenly we looked ‘round and
thought ‘well, there’s not much of that left any more’. We were kind of
embittered and disappointed by missing out on this great age of the valleys
being a political, intellectual, physical and industrial powerhouse. We
suddenly weren’t in that age. We spent a long time just resenting the fact that
we were teenagers in the eighties. Immediately we wanted to leave Wales. When
we left we realized we were not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of</i>
the rest of the world – we were particularly Welsh, we realized it was our
inspiration and we went back to it like scolded cats. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: You should have known better?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Yeah, well we just realized we were of
it and it was what had inspired us for better or for worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was our birthright. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There are certain songs that have…not a
myopically domestic reach but more a national reach. Songs like ‘Natwest
Barclays Midlands Lloyds’ which people laughed at at the time but I think was
quite prescient lyric considering now what’s happened…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The only way Wales was represented was
through TV footage of the miner’s strike going past streets that you lived on
or you recognized and in a strange way that connected Wales to the rest of
Britain. So on songs like ‘Repeat’ and Natwest…’ it suddenly felt as if we were
connecting the dots between our economic situation and the Thatcher government.
Which all sounds really didactic and quite punk but that’s the way things
were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Then there were songs like ‘Little Baby
Nothing’ which were just about gender politics in a sense so it went beyond our
Welsh borders. If you look at the songs lyrically I think anybody from Britain
can connect with any of those songs but we soon realized we were part of that
Welsh tradition where heavy rock was just such a massive South Wales tradition like
it was in the Midlands etc. and we had to take our inspiration from it – not
fight against it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I still notice when I go home the sheer
volume of Guns N Roses and Iron Maiden t-shirts…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: (Laughs)I know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the weird thing about us as
people is from the age of 13 I was into ELO, from the age of 15 to 17 I was
just a massive indie freak into bands like The Bodines, June Brides, Big Flame
and the Shop Assistants and then Public Enemy and Guns N Roses came along and
…by the time I got to 20 and I was going through the old Aerosmith back
catalogue I’d been through every phase possible and the one thing that drew us
all together apart from the social situation and being born in Wales was that
we just digested music to an absolutely mental degree. Richey was a massive
Einsterzande Neubaten fan, an Echo and the Bunnymen fan, a Killing Joke fan,
Nick was a massive Smiths fan, a massive Rush fan, a massive Whitesnake fan, a
massive Orange Juice fan. Sean was a massive Kraftwerk fan, a massive Residents
fan and I was into my Motown, my ELO, my Big Flame, my Jasmine Minks, early
Aerosmith. We didn’t have any snobbery about music. We were just obsessed about
it all. That smash-up between musicians who were fiercely into jangly-jangly
music like Jasmine Minks morphing into something like ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’
didn’t occur to us. It was just natural.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: So that’s how you end up with a debut
double album with 18 tracks – through digesting all sorts of music?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Yeah it is. But it’s really funny
because we’ve been going through all our old demos for the album and it was
almost like archeological work. I realized a song like ‘Love’s Sweet Exile’ did
start out life when we were about 17 years old as an early My Bloody Valentine
kind of song – before they became a noise band, when they were a proper indie
band with a different singer – it’s just weird. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ started out as a
kind of Motorcycle Boy ripoff – Motorcycle Boy was a band that came out of The
Shop Assistants – and I looked at other stuff…’Repeat’ is a complete Pistols
homage. Then something like ‘Another Invented Disease’ that comes from me being
obsessed with the Joey Kramer shuffle in terms of Aerosmith? He’s one of the
only rock drummers that can do that shuffle and I thought I’d try to write a
song around it. If we’d ha a manager or somebody at the record company that
would have pointed any of this stuff out to us we might have questioned
ourselves or thought we were too mixed up to ever get anywhere but that’s the
other thing that happened to us. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Rob Stringer who had signed us at Sony
never questioned our magpie sensibilities or our obsessions. He never
questioned it he just thought it was our strength.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Martin Hall and Phillip Hall never
questioned our scatterbrained philosophies they just kind of accepted that it
was part of our strength.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We were incredibly lucky with the people we
met in the record industry. A lot of people piss and moan about the record
industry and how badly it’s treated them but we had nothing but good luck.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I have always wondered – insisting on a
double debut, all the shit you were stirring in the press – how you got away
with it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: I just think that between Nick and
Richie they’d got to a point in their lives where they just felt that a lot of
things that were going on were an affront to them intellectually. They had
that…Raymond Williams you know, that Welsh writer, they had that sense of being
from Wales and having no inferiority complex. They thought that they had better
ideas than everybody else and that everybody else was wrong. I think we’re a
bit more humble than that now (laughs) but when you’re young you feel
indestructible and they just felt that things affronted them in an intellectual
sense and they were just confident. Phillip Hall and Martin saw that strength.
I think they were fed up of bands just tipping up and saying that it was all
about the music…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: If anyone else likes it it’s a bonus…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: yeah. I think they liked that these
four gobshites actually enjoyed their own dose of tourette’s and didn’t try to
tame it. All of those people just saw our misguided stupidity as our strength
and like I said we’ll never moan about the record industry because we met lots
of courageous people that just had faith in us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Were you working with Caffy St Luce
then?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: of course! Well, you know Caffy, she’s
gloriously idiosyncratic in every sense of the word. I suppose you join the
dots. Phillip had massive faith in us without us actually having any proper
evidence or proof that what we were saying was true or would work he just had
massive faith in it. So much faith that he was 30 grand in the hole from us
smashing equipment for like a year. It’s the same with Caffy. Caffy – you’ll
never meet anybody else like her, especially back in the day, especially back
in the early 90s. I remember Caffy just turned up in the office and it was like
‘this is Caffy. She’s a bit mental but she’s brilliant’ and that was it.
Obviously Phillip had this habit of gathering people around him who had an
acute perception of the world, and having faith that it would translate to
other people sooner or later. That just goes to prove that Phillip had faith in
things that might initially be lost in translation but would eventually settle
into the cultural landscape.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: You’ve had this devoted fanbase for
such a long time. Have you ever come to terms with this idea of thousands of
people obsessing over you – especially in the early days, there was a very
intense relationship with with the fans wasn’t there?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Yeah I was slightly uncomfortable with
it for a long time. But I think as the band is…we’ve got to our tenth album
with ‘Postcards from a Young Man’ and I think that side of it has slightly
dissolved away and what is left is people that perhaps are not so bothered
about the ephemera that’s attached to the music they actually realize that we
load the music so much with all our intentions and all our effort, that our
records are so loaded with what we are that they don’t need to be bothered with
the ephemera around the band.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But yeah, around the time of The Holy Bible
it was slightly disquieting the kind of stuff that would be attached to us in
terms of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">some </i>fans. I was never
comfortable with that. It was easy to shrink away from that kind of in-depth
analysis of what you did. I’ve always loved music journalism. in a sense
that..i grew up in an age when I would read about a record before I’d hear it
for another two weeks sometimes because it was so hard to get the record and
the way the journalist had written about it, whether it be Simon Reynolds or
Steven Wells, the way they’d actually written about the record could sometimes
make it disappointing because they’d described it in such over-triumphalised
ways but it did inform the record and you’d grow to love it because of what had
been written about the record. So I’ve always loved in-depth analysis of music
BUT even for me the way some fans over-emotionalised and over-intellectualised
some of the stuff on the Holy Bible became something that I wanted to be
distanced from. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I understand. Do you remember the
Cardiff Astoria gig from that tour?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: That was one of the hottest gigs of
all time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: It was mental.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: So hot…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: A good gig though…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: (Laughs)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I feared for several people’s lives
during it…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Yeah, I think people were scared that
they were becoming dehydrated and they’d get out of the venue looking like the
life force had been sucked out of them! I remember that as like being in one of
the seven rings of hell, an inferno. I think the air conditioning had broken
and everything just felt like it was…a molten lake of some kind of fury. It’s
really weird that you bring that up. It’s not one of my happiest memories that
gig.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: No balaclava that night then?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: I’d have fucking been finished let’s
face it! I’d have been gone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Right what’s next..am I keeping you
timewise?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Whatever mate – if my mobile rings
I’ll call time kinda thing but I’m fine, cool.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Thanks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seeing as you mention it then – if that was a bad memory of
The Holy Bible period then can you tell me a good one?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: The actual recording of The Holy Bible
is a great memory because the first two records – we’d done standard record
company things of going to a big palatial studio and going to a residential
studio and doing the record. I think Nick had a bit of a meltdown after Gold
Against the Soul where he felt as if we’d lost a sense of ourselves in terms of
living in these palatial studios and being away from Wales. This is where the
road back to Wales began, at this very point I think. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It was kind of Nick’s idea to go and use
this little studio in Cardiff we’d used for b-sides and stuff and suddenly it
was amazing to be back in this studio in the red light area of Cardiff which it
was then – more the gluebag area of Cardiff to be honest – but it was amazing
to be back there. We were all confined in this tiny studio, we’d all meet there
ten o’clock every morning. Everybody would clock off at 8 o’clock and leave me
there ‘til 2 oclock in the morning working on through the night and I was going
back home every night to my mam and dad’s. So here I was on my third album on a
major label and I was recording that album and sleeping at my mum and dad’s
house every night after working. It felt brilliant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It felt right you know? We should come back. This is the
right move. We actually did lose ourselves a bit and it was great to be able to
be waking up in the Valleys every morning, going back down to Cardiff and just
recording. Just seeing Richey coming in every morning wearing a donkey jacket, no
like a sheepskin jacket, a complete John Motson replica from the ‘70s thing,
he’s open a little tinny “pfffft” and that would be the start of the day. He’d
have these reams and reams of notes and his typewriter was set up in the corner
and nick was chipping in with lots of titles, not as many lyrics as usual, as
everyone knows Richey ran with the ball on that record but yeah Nick would be
standing over him like some kind of headmaster then he’d pop in with a verse
and then, I remember one day Nick went over to him and just gave him the title
‘Faster’ and then Richey just wrote the words to the title which is brilliant
it’s…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I’d no idea of that…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Yeah, it’s like the fact that Nick
came up with the title and Richey wrote the words to it, took it home and
finished it off and stuff. It’s amazing. The way they work with each other.
Richey was stuck one day, Nicky just gives him a title and it sparked him
off…that’s just really good…that’s team work buddy!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We were all crushed in together and we were
using this engineer from Cardiff called Alex Silva who is a Welsh Italian who
has been a friend ever since and he lives in Berlin now and works with Herbert Gronemeyer.
He’s been really successful but we were just all there on top of each other and
suddenly my old influences that I’d had from when I was 16 and 17 of being a
massive Magazine fan, a massive Wire fan, suddenly that was all coming to the
fore because I was back home at my parents’ house where I still had my records
and I was every morning playing my records before catching a bus down to
Cardiff and suddenly I could hear that come to the fore in the music and it was
a great experience.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">People think that The Hoy Bible was
traumatic from top to bottom but the actual recording and writing of it, the
rehearsing of it and of us all being back in Cardiff was just an amazing
experience – it was just such a gloriously happy time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Speaking as someone who was growing up
in Merthyr when that came out, for the group of people I knocked about with it
was a very empowering record rather than anything dark or upsetting
necessarily. Hearing ‘Faster’ for the first time is an almost incomparably
empowering experience…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: I think you’re right. I think ‘Faster’
particularly is self-empowering, it’s a complete direct statement of intent and
it actually frees you when you play it sometimes. It still feels like that. I
remember the lyric…I had to write the music for that song twenty times exactly.
I knew I had to get it right. In the end the easiest idea was the right idea,
musically. I remember the lyric just made me feel better – it just did. It gave
me that old sense of righteous arrogance back which I’d lost at that point I
think. There are other songs on there where people might assume that everything
is wrapped up in some dark maelstrom of emotions but a song like ‘If White…’ I
actually just loved that song. It is self-empowering. A lot of bands at the
moment are not actually engaged with any kind of political culture whether it
be in a domestic sense or an international sense and it felt liberating just to
try to sing those lyrics. Just to know that you were in a band that was engaged
with the world and it’s own world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘This Is Yesterday’, it still gives me a sense of melancholic
victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of people assume
that album is a massive comedown but for me sometimes it just feels like a
great pre-match speech. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">That’s enough of the sporting analogies I
think.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: You’ve got a good half a dozen in so
far! Going through the old material – does it have a weight of sadness to it?
Harking back to a time when you still had Richie there – is it sad or is there
a balance to it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: First of all I think you can answer
that on two levels. First in terms of how the album actually turned out
musically I think going through the demos did make me…most bands have big
regrets about their first album, about the way they did it because naturally
you go on and you realize you could have done things better. When I listen back
to some of the demos I mean there’s a demo of ‘Stay Beautiful’ which is called
‘Generation Terrorists’ itself…there’s a demo of ‘Repeat’ and there’s a demo of
‘Natwest’…’ just for those three songs perhaps the album versions are just a
bit too glossy. We lost a bit of that kind of …punk edge definitely. One of our
favourite things that unified us at the time was we all loved the Spunk
Sessions the Pistols did? All the demos they did before Never Mind The Bollocks
essentially and if you listen to ‘Generation Terrorists’ which became ‘Stay
Beautiful’ the ‘Repeat’ demo, ‘Natwest’ and perhaps ‘Crucifix Kiss’ there’s a
demo of that too… we smoothed things off a bit too much. So there was an
element of regret where I thought the album could have been a mixture of what
‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ ended up being and what ‘Motown Junk’ was. That ‘Motown
Junk’ edge perhaps…but ultimately if we hadn’t gone so deep into that studio
craft or whatever you want to call it we wouldn’t have ended up with
‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ it just wouldn’t have happened. Steve Brown was a
massive part in developing ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ because there was a demo and
he said we had to write other parts and we cannibalized parts from old songs
for ‘M.E’ and if I Steve hadn’t left it on the desk for so long and become
obsessed with it I wouldn’t have come up with the guitar riff for it and
inevitably ‘M.E’ was a kind of saving grace because it was the first hint that
we could walk it like we talked it and it was the first hint that there was a
certain, not originality to us but a uniqueness to us. I think that is the song
that wasn’t a hit around the world but is our best known song around the world
except for ‘If You tolerate This…’ and ‘Your Love Alone’ surprisingly. Those
three songs are the songs that everybody around the world knows so if we hadn’t
gone so far down the road of trying to be polished ion the studio we wouldn’t
have come up with ‘M.E’ and perhaps we wouldn’t have got this far – I think.
It’s a bittersweet irony of we lost some of our ‘Motown Junk’ edge but if we
hadn’t have gone down that road we probably wouldn’t have survived I don’t
think.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Gotcha. When you’re looking back, for
instance doing the Holy Bible package and now this one for Generation Terrorists,
even now in this interview there’s instances where Richey comes up a lot and
memories of that time. Are you at peace with looking back or does it get to
you?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: In terms of us being bandmates we’re
completely at ease with it. We’ve been through lots of anniversaries now and
we’ve done ‘National Treasures’, ‘Greatest Hits, the re-issue of The Holy Bible
and we’re used to coming across beautiful curled up photos and old lyrics with
his doodlings on. We’re used to coming across old interviews and hearing his
voice and yeah, it used to be like a punch in the stomach. We used to roll on
the waves every time we’d come across these things but inevitably we’ve done so
much in terms of retrospectives and reissues that we’re used to it. It actually
makes us smile to see him. It actually makes us smile to see some silly Nietszchean
cat cartoon on the side of an old lyric or to see a picture him in the studio
from when we were doing the Holy Bible. I came across one and he’s wearing the
most awful Henry Rollins t-shirt in the studio which someone wouldn’t equate
with him. They think he was always a glamourpuss, he was always dressed to the
tees but there he is…Oh no sorry, it’s not a Rollins t-shirt it’s a Dub War
t-shirt…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Dub War? Excellent…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Which is fine in itself but it’s four
sizes two big for him and it looks like a fucking tent on him! We’re used to
those moments now and they make us…the only really overriding bittersweet
emotion we have these days is…and of course you’re still gonna have…there’s
still gonna be stuff in your subconscious which you just keep back there. But
the overriding emotion we have in terms of anything apart from us being happy
when we hear his voice or see his picture or some old artifact connected with
him… the only negative emotion we have these days is when we see a new
interview from a band or hear a record from a band or we see an interview in
one of the broadsheets with somebody who’s supposed to be the benchmark of
something glorious, and we just think fucking hell if he was around now he
would just destroy. He would just fucking…intellectually he would just kill
everything! He’d have the biggest Twitter following in the western world. He
would. For better of for worse he would clean up at the moment because it’s an
easy competition out there at the moment. Just investigating things and coming
up with some convoluted, fucked up answer? He was the king. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I appreciate you answering that. How
come no gig for Generation Terrorists?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: We can’t in Britain because when we
did the O2 show at Christmas we actually said that it was our last concert in
Britain for two years. We’re desperately trying to hold ourselves to that
(laughs) we’ve done our best. We might put something up online in a couple of
weeks time, we might go through a couple of songs that we never play live, we
might go through some in the studio and put them online. We would have lied to
but we’d put this UK live embargo on ourselves for the O2 show so we can’t…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Fair play. If you’ve made a promise…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: (Laughs) yeah, and we always keep our
promises don’t we?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Yeah absolutely, that’s self-evident
that is James… I didn’t get to see the O2 but I saw a few on Journal For Plague
Lovers and the full run through that album went really well it seemed. Were you
happy with that?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: The first half was respectful. I think
and then the second half…there was the more kind of cerebral set and then there
was the dancing set is the way we saw it by the end of the tour I think and it
did work. I think its something that is going to colour the way we go on and
play live in the future actually. In terms of dividing sets up like that? It’s
an easier way to actually do things and make things more interesting for people
and for ourselves. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">As you get older, mixing the past, the
present and perhaps the future in one concert perhaps becomes more and more
troublesome in terms of how you pitch things – whether you can put ‘Motorcycle
Emptiness’ next to ‘Archives of Pain’ or if you put ‘If You tolerate This…’ or
‘The Everlasting’ next to ‘Revol’…it’s something that becomes harder and harder
to program in terms of a setlist. I think we’re gonna go farther down that
route of doing two sets as time goes on I think.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Have you looked at the possibility of
another solo record?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Nowhere near my horizon. I just love
being in the band, I just love it. I’m living in Cardiff, I catch the bus into
work, I’m there in 25 minutes then we’ve got our studio in Cardiff, I go there
and Nick’s watching Sky Sports News and pissing and moaning about the seedings
in the Heineken Cup as usual and Shaun’s unwrapping some fucking new piece of
technological gear that he’s bought for the studio and it’s a nice world to be
in at the moment you know? We’ve got our HQ in Cardiff and every time we go
there it’s almost like an episode of ‘Only When I Laugh’…are you old enough to
remember that?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I am..James Bolam…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: (much laughter) it’s like everyone’s
lined up in their same old positions in the studio and everyone’s pissing and
moaning. It’s a lovely little nest we’ve got there. To be fair we’ve been
furiously demoing all year and I think we’re twenty songs in now. It’s so great
to be in a band. It’s sickeningly lucky to be in a band with your best friends
that you went to school with and you grew up with, but it’s just absolutely
fucking amazing. I’ve got absolutely no inclination to be a solo artist again
if I don’t have to!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: (Laughs) So is 70 Songs of Hatred and
Failure still a viable album title?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: I’ve downgraded Wire’s monolithic slab
of intent to 35 songs at the moment. I’m working on 35. I’m chipping away, I’m
chipping away with my chisel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Excellent. I’ve got a stupid question
to ask you last.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Cool!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Have you seen WWE wrestler Wade
Barrett’s tattoo?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: I’ve heard about Wade Barrett, yes.
One of my friend’s sons is a massive WWF…uh, WWE fan and yes he’s got a
‘Culture, Alienation, Boredom and Despair’ tattoo I think?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: He certainly fucking has…Yeah. It’s a
beautiful tattoo but it’s so incongruous. It’s excellent.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Right well let’s just put this out
there – if you’re listening Wade Barrett we will do your fucking theme tune –
just get in touch. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: That’s what I like to hear…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: That would be the ultimate
Situationist bizarrist spectacle wouldn’t it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: It would be perfect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Us being played over the airwaves in
some Enormodome in front of 20,000 mad Yanks in Colorado somewhere…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: That’s the definition of breaking
America</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: That would be THE Situationist
spectacle. Guy De Bord would be proud.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Thanks so much for this then.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Ah, it’s a pleasure man. You back
there much at all in Merthyr? You get back and see people?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: Yeah I was back over the summer to see
my mam, I’ve still got mates there, go to Cardiff for gigs. I love going back –
it’s like you were saying earlier, as soon as you’re out of there you’re
looking for ways to go back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Yeah. It’s amazing…the best café in
Cardiff at the moment next time you’re here is the Trade Street Café which is opposite
Brains brewery the street opposite…er…it’s round the back of Central Station.
Really good café.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I’ll have a look</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: You been to the Mochyn Du as well?
Good pub serving good beer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I’ll have a look. I’ve been going to
the City Arms</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Well off Cathedral Road is the Mochyn
Du which is lovely – really nice. Then further up in terms of real ales – a
really good selection – at the top of Cathedral Road the Conway pub on Conway
road. That has Vale of Glamorgan stuff, lots of Otleys stuff it’s really nice.
City Arms – it’s a new guy that’s taken over there and they do have a lot more
guest ales now but in terms of a kind of more sensible sit-down pint, a wee bit
gastrified but you know, whatever, the Mochyn Du – the Black Pig, just behind
the cricket ground – it’s a good pub! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: I’ll pop my head in.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">JDB: Alright then butt – take care Mikey,
man.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">MH: And you mate. Pleasure to talk to you</span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">JDB: Absolute pleasure. And if you’re ever in Trade Street Café stick
your hand up and I’ll come and say hello.</span>
michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-66931325066593759432012-10-01T06:21:00.004-07:002012-10-01T06:21:58.127-07:00The Complete Ken Stringfellow Q Interview<i>this is the whole thing, in full - one of the most illuminating interviews i've ever had the privilege of being involved in. fantastic stories in here for fans of ken, big star, posies, rem and the disciplines...it's long as hell and worth every moment of your time - mr stringfellow should write a book about his life in music, no question in my mind.</i><br />
<br />
<i>for those that missed the original version on Q's website the idea was to propose 5 key works to ken and have him tell us a little bit about them. obviously we got a lot more than we bargained for and it would be hard to be more pleased with a musician's responses to some, in all honesty, very basic questions...</i><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">"Always operating a little under the radar, Californian Ken Stringfellow
has been one of the key players in the US alternative scene for the past two
decades. Aside from production, endless collaborations, live and session work
and a deep level of involvement with some of the most influential American
bands of modern times, Stringfellow is now taking the bold leap of going solo
with new album ‘Danzig In The Moonlight’ (that title’s gotta be worth a lol,
right?). Q sat him down and told him what his five finest musical moments were
and happily he not only didn’t hit us for being cheeky but went so far as to
tell us a little bit about each of the lovely slabs of vinyl in question:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Frosting On The Beater – The
Posies</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">One of the definitive sugar-rush albums of the early 90s this was the
beauteous pop record that brought Ken to many music afficionado’s attention for
the first time – along with longtime collaborator Jon Auer Stringfellow served
up a rich mix of powerpop tunes that so very nearly broke them through to the
mainstream via classic single ‘Dream All Day’…</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">'Frosting on the Beater' was one of those difficult records that
actually yielded good results. As a record producer/engineer etc. these days I
am all about making the experience as smooth as possible, with good planning,
good skills, and coaxing the artist into knowing where they are going and at
the same accepting that we are going to go somewhere during the recording that
neither I nor they predicted, and to be cool with that. I've worked with some
insecure bands, but I doubt I've encountered one as insecure as the Posies were
during the making of this album. We were an unlikely contender in many ways--we
had so little to do musically with the bands breaking in a huge way around us.
Not that I couldn't hear Beach Boys-esque melodic joy in some of Nirvana's
music, e.g., but the packaging was so different, and that affected what people
presumed of our cultural politics, etc. So in Seattle, our home base, we
remained a band that was very popular (but with limits) that had the impression
that many people felt that even that sliver of popularity was undeserved.
Yikes! We came off the road in the spring of 1991 for our second album,
"Dear 23"which was released in 1990, and proceeded to dive right into
recording, down n dirty style, with our live sound engineer. Many of these
songs were scrapped, and soon, so was our bass player, who insisted on writing
songs for the band, despite our insistence (based on observations that I deem
correct) that they didn't fit in at all with what we were doing. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">It was Gary Gersh, our A&R (who also signed Nirvana, Sonic Youth,
etc) who proposed Don Fleming to produce the album 'for reals' and he was an
inspired choice. But a three-legged dog is still a three-legged dog. And that
makes peeing on a fire hydrant a tricky proposition indeed. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">It was decided that Don come to Seattle to to a trial run and in a few
days, where we funneled a sizable portion of the budget into keeping Don's weed
and Heineken levels operational (to say the least), we recorded "Solar
Sister", "Burn & Shine" and several more of the most
important tracks on the album. We'd enjoyed working with John Leckie on our
previous album, but Don's method was more true to life to the live band we'd become.
Our meticulous UK production was great for a band that had never toured…but
there was a real (uh, three-legged) band here, and the record showcases that
marvelously. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Then we went to New York. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Sharing a room at a hotel on Central Park, the three of us didn't get
along stupendously well. I was dark, drinking hard, and, frankly, irked at the
prissy ways of my bandmates. Jon was achingly insecure and moody. Liable to
burst into tears at mild criticism, it didn't help that Jim Waters, our
engineer was possessed of a New Yorker's idea of bedside manner ("You call
that a take? That's a faggot take! Do it again, or I'll be sick!" Actual
quotes. ) Mike, our brilliant drummer, was a nitpicker ('uh, by the way, It
seems I should have gotten $1.50 in change back on that take out we ordered
last year in the studio. I take checks') and cynical in the ways that aren't
funny. We had endless tech problems, none of Jon's guitars seemed to stay in
tune, no matter who we called in to work on them. Stuff like that. It was a
long, slow slog that yielded in three weeks about as much as our 5 day session
in Seattle did. Ouch. However, we did have visits from Thurston Moore, who
proclaimed the guitar sounds on the album 'very cool'. That's high praise. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Then we went to L.A. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Out of the frying pan….did we have an album? We thought so. We called it
'Eclipse' and set to mixing it with John Hanlon at Ocean Way in L.A. Big time
stuff. John had mixed 'Ragged Glory'. Don ran out of weed and, as the Beatles
said, 'proceeded to lie on the table'. And that's about it. Mike Watt came by,
that was fun. Mick Jagger argued with his soon to be ex wife on the pay phone
RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR LOUNGE! We heard every word and he didn't seem to care. Pay
phones! Those were the days. I still have a note that Rick Rubin placed on the
phone to get Mick to check in on his album sometime. "Mick. Help.
Rick." In fact, at one point we were listening to a playback, very loud,
and in walks Ahmet Ertegun with two, uh, females. He swoons, he LOVES it, eyes
rolled up in his head. Track ends. "That's fanTASTic. But what did you do
to Mick's voice, it sounds quite different!". </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">John Hanlon, however was fresh outta rehab, and had shall we say, a
personality that was used to high levels of energy. He was totally not ready to
adjust to the real world. Typical exchange: "John, this mix is great, but,
uh, there's a lead guitar missing, after the second verse could you, uh…..
" "WHY DON'T YOU MIX THE GODDAM RECORD YOURSELF IF YOU'RE ALL SUCH
FUCKING GENIUSES? I DON'T NEED THIS SHIT!".<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We fired him after a few days. Bye, fucker. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">So, we regrouped, did some more writing, got back to the same 5 day,
same studio in Seattle, set up<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>with Don that yielded such good results, and did amazing stuff (the weed
*is* good in Seattle, that prob helped)-- "Dream All Day",
"Flavor of the Month", etc. Our spirits up, we then hooked up with
Dave Bianco, went back to L.A. and he did a bang up job mixing the album. To be
fair, John Hanlon mixed "Love Letter Boxes" and "Earlier than
Expected" and they sound really good. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Did it feel like a
breakthrough for you when it was released?</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Frosting was a slow breakthrough. It didn't feel like it, but we started
to tour Europe, but it felt more like--oh, Big Star has reunited, and their
agent says we have to have the Posies, too. OK. Haha. Then the reviews came in.
I didn't speak French then, but our live sound engineer did, Craig Montgomery
who also toured with Nirvana. He said "these are the same level of reviews
that Nevermind got…wow!". We did a great, epic, tour with Teenage Fanclub,
occasionally joined by Pulp, Superchunk, Juliana Hatfield, and even Alex
Chilton at one point. We were young and so excited to be playing, and we were
good. The Fannies were hit and miss, sometimes Norman lost his voice (there's a
recording of us singing their set for them in Amsterdam), more often Brendan O
Hare partied too hard and didn't eat and would just run out of gas in the show.
Of course, they were often awesome too but we looked very very good and people
were excited to see us (new kid in school, only happens once). In the states
our live draw went from zero to 600 very fast. Nirvana-esque. But, we weren't
metal enough to survive the US radio market, still dominated by 'Rock'
stations, and we weren't considered indie enough to go thru back channels, so
we didn't end up selling as many records as bands that are less renowned from
the era. We sold like 150.000 of Frosting all told. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Are The Posies the band
you’d like to be remembered for? Are The Posies the most important to you of
your musical work?</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I'd like to be remembered for all the work I've done, a body of work. The
productions, the bands, the sideman stuff, the compositions, etc. My view on
the Posies body of work is hard to detach from my experiences with the
participants. And I think the solo work I've done is a stronger statement. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Do you still consider The
Posies an ongoing concern? Do you have plans for a new record or to tour again?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What does this record mean
to you now? Do you still listen back to it?</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The door is open, for the Posies to continue. Jon seems to be coming to
my neighborhood, marrying a girl from near Paris. Kind of chuckled, kind of
horrified. I like my space. But it does put us in range of working on stuff
together. No plans are in the works, tho. I plan to be busy on the solo album
and other projects for awhile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
don't listen to Frosting on the Beater these days. It's fun to play the album
live, which we've done a few times over the years. It's a little simplistic for
my tastes, and lyrically, it's interesting, but not as interesting as things
have become in my life. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Reveal – REM</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">In many eyes the last REM record worthy of admission to their esteemed
canon this found Stringfellow augmenting the Athens Georgia jangle legends with
an armoury of keyboard sounds that he would go on to replicate with them across
several huge world tours. That you could hear Stringfellow’s influence across
the music is unarguable – what’s more impressive is that it doesn’t unbalance
the songwriting of Buck, Mills and Stipe in any way. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">How did you become
involved with REM in the first place?</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Peter Buck moved to Seattle c. 1994, and already being well acquainted
with my friend Scott McCaughey, hung around Scott a lot. Peter is the ultimate
Rolling Stone--he cannot be, will not be, has not been idle, like, ever. Scott
was working on a solo album with me, and Peter soon was a part of it too. This
became a band: The Minus 5. We played live, etc. Jon Auer sometimes joined us.
This would be 95, 96.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day I
got a call from Barrett Martin, the former Screaming Trees drummer, who had
been working on the album 'Up'. So, we're talking 1998. He said 'hey, REM asked
me to go on tour, but what they really need is a keyboard player. I recommended
you."That's nice! I had noticed already that Peter was pretty curious
about what I was up to, etc. Then one day, he asked me if I'd like to come to San
Francisco and do an audition for REM's tour. Sure! Then, like a day later, I
got a call: "Ken, it's Peter, forget about the audition. Just come down
and play". He gave me a list of roughly 40-50 songs from REM's catalogue,
and asked me to learn them. "On which instrument?" "Oh, you
might play guitar, maybe bass…probably some keys". So, yes, I learned ALL
the parts on ALL the songs. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Playing the arena and
stadium shows with REM must have been quite an experience – tell us a little
bit about that?</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I'd had experiences playing big festivals with the Posies, but yes, this
was a whole 'nuther thing. We headlined Glastonbury! Twice!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We played to 250,000 people (at least)
at Rock in Rio. We played to a TV audience of something like a billion for Live
8. The most interesting bits tho were just having great musicians and artists
in my social circle--dinner with Radiohead one day, playing cards on a private
plane with the E Street Band and its leader one day. I am nothing if not a good
observer, and there was much to observe, absorb, learn, and experience. And REM
themselves, the three guys, were and are generous, unpretentious, and
supportive. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">How easy was it for you to
fit into a role in a band where you weren’t necessarily ‘in charge’?</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Oh, it's a bloody relief! It's great to contribute to the structure of
the cake, and not have to be the fucking cherry all the time. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">How do you feel about REM
breaking up? Was it right for them?</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">When REM broke up, it seemed so…severe. It's brave tho, most bands
just…stop existing, no fanfare. It's noble to put a statement out and preempt
attempts to get you back for this benefit, this event. Was it right for them?
Only they know. I guess so, tho. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What does this record mean
to you now? Do you still listen back to it?</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The making of Revel changed my whole working method in music. Their
unscripted way of making this album was a master class in total trust of the
creative process. Prior to that, I made albums, like the Posies albums, that
had demos, rehearsals, and such--nothing was left to chance, really. REM were
really fearless in their approach to recording, re-doing, jettisoning,
re-working material. With my albums, since then, and I've made but three, but
they were a mix of songs 'written' and songs 'made up'. To be honest, there's
not much difference…at some point, to write something, you have to make something
up. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In Space – Big Star</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Did people want a new Big Star record? More than 25 years after the
late, much-missed Alex Chilton’s last release under the Big Star name (‘Third’,
without doubt one of the great records of our times and recently celebrated on
an all-star tour organized by Stringfellow and featuring the likes of Mike
Mills, Jeff Tweedy and surviving Big Star member Jody Stephens) Chilton decided
they would get one either way. With fellow Posie Jon Auer also on board, Big
Star 2.0 happily delivered a vintage quality album of gorgeous powerpop that
holds it’s own set against the excellence of the ultimate cult band’s ‘70s
output.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Tell us about how you
first came to work with Alex Chilton…</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Just extreme applied fandom. We, the Posies wore that influence on our
sleeves, socks, sombrero…just about anywhere we could shout out the lore of Big
Star, we did. That sort of thing gets you noticed, and the result is usually
either a restraining order or immediate deployment. We were lucky--Jody
Stephens, Big Star's drummer, is always supportive of efforts to keep Big
Star's music out there, and he picked up on our recordings of Big Star &
Chris Bell covers and was enthusiastic about that and what we were doing with
our own music. All of a sudden Alex was interested in playing Big Star's music
again, after turning down countless requests he agreed to one. And Jon & I
were there, volunteering like the biggest school nerd--hands up--call on me! call
on me! I also did some Goodfellas stuff on the poor kid who had the idea to
make this show happen and drew the golden ticket; I cornered him at SXSW and
basically threatened things. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Being a member of Big Star
– a surreal experience to begin with?</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Was being part of Big Star, playing those songs, surreal? Always! But my
life is totally surreal. Half of the posters on my teenage bedroom wall peeled
themselves off and started playing music with me--I've made music with a
Beatle, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, REM…I'm still not sure how it
happened. I'm a kid from a small town, like a million billion other ones, who
probably play guitar better than I do. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What was the recording of
this album like?</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Free form. I don't think any songs were written in advance. Alex had
some notes. And some sheet music--he'd arranged some baroque music for two
guitars bass and drums. But the rest came thru jamming, or woodshedding after
hours. Alex was very keen on NOT fixing any mistakes, and Jon & I err on
the meticulous. So, he was good at restraining that--I can't hear any of the
things I wanted to 'repair' or do over at the time, anymore. Alex had many
moments where it first appears he's being a contrarian for its own sake, but only
because it's outside your own static view. Many ties he surprised me with the
accuracy of his observations, that were running counter to my perceptions, til
I looked deeper. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Tell us a little bit about
being out on the road with Big Star – was it a fun time? Did audiences respond
the way you’d expected them to?</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">We didn't play often, but as you can imagine, people were so in awe of
that music and Alex. When we played in Japan, and we had 7 minutes of applause
when we came off stage and went to the dressing room (count it out…it's a LONG
time. Really enthusiastic applause is usually like, ten seconds). Alex's
response, with a poker face: "fuck 'em. Elvis never did
encores".<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Haha. Big Star was
easy--everyone loves the band, young and old, mainstream and indie folks. I
tour managed and it was a piece of cake. Alex was so easy to work with--and he
had a reputation for being difficult. But I think he only complained…when there
was shit fucked up. I run a tight ship! So no complaints. The last show we
played, November 2009, was a great last show to have, if that's how it had to
be. Alex was happy, even ready to accept the adulation of the audience, a
little. We played like a million bucks and people were singing along with
everything…big packed hall in Brooklyn. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The Third show that you
organized this year was incredible – people in the audience at the Barcelona
show I attended were in tears both of joy and sadness – do you think that tour
is the full stop at the end of your involvement with Big Star? How did the tour
go for you?</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I didn't organize the Big Star Third show in the sense of an
impresario--the conception and musical direction of this project is from Chris Stamey,
of the dbs and who also was in Alex's band in the early days in New York post
Big Star. I did, however, tour manage this extravaganza--I worked my tail off,
wrangling this and that, and then jumping onstage to do musical things now and
then. It was so intense, but the shows, wow. Yes, very emotional. There's only
Jody left, and I think this beautiful cast is assembled around him by virtue of
his karma, not just because everyone loves this music. But, we all hope to keep
the flame flickering for awhile, obviously the band is finished but we
continue, and will continue, to celebrate this music where we can. For those
who say we should stop playing this music-- I say: people who aren't remotely
related to Beethoven play his music all the time; Jody wrote some of these
songs…and he wants to play while he still can. And I will be there to help that
happen! </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What does this record mean
to you now? Do you still listen back to it?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I do listen to "In Space" now and then. The memories of making
it are good. And, "Turn My Back on the Sun" is about as apropos an
homage to Alex as I could think of, knowing he loves the Beach Boys, I wrote my
own Beach Boys song, but with the Beach Boys doing the unthinkable…turning
*away* from the sun! I think he appreciated the sacrilege. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Smoking Kills – The
Disciplines</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">A change in direction for Stringfellow saw the Californian front up an
otherwise entirely Norwegian garage rock band (onetime A-HA support band Briskeby)
supercharged with Stooges drive, but, as ever with Stringfellow, drenched in
delicious melody. This, their debut full length, is representative of another
string to Ken’s bow. Who knew he was a euro-punk too?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">How did you become
involved in fronting a Norwegian band?</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I play in Norway a lot, and my last albums got really good reviews
there. So, I was on a lot of musicians' radars'. Including a band called Briskeby,
who had a run of hits there in the early 2000s. Funny moment when, hanging with
REM at a Video Music Awards after party, playing piano with Heidi Klum, as one
does, this striking young lady approaches the table. REM guys go into highly
modest 'prepare to be talked to by fan and be gracious' mode. And this young lady,
Lise, the singer of Briskeby says 'scuse me, but, I am such a fan…of Touched
(my 2001 solo album)!" Cut to invisibly registered shock followed by
almost disappointment from my employers, as she and I work our way thru the
songs on my album on the piano. I met the rest of her band, we all hit it off.
A few years later, she left to do a solo thing and the guys in the band were
basically moving on--Bjorn, the guitarist, is now a doctor, for example. I
suggested we try something together, just as a fun thing since their band had
come under a lot of pressure from their big label to make hits, etc. So, we did
something more spontaneous, raw. And we had a BIG hit in Norway. And a lot of
fun. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Do you see yourself as
European after so many years living in Paris?</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">As long as I'm paying my taxes in Washington State….haha. I think my
natural state of being is new kid in school. Why not uproot myself from
Seattle, where I'm practically a city councilman, to Paris, where I couldn't get
arrested if I dealt acid to preschoolers. What can I say? Anonymity is power.
So, I feel like a guy who lives in Paris, speaks basic French, and shuffles off
to Buffalo now and then. Family life is great here. And access to quality cuts
of horse meat a plus. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">How does the process of
recording with The Disciplines work? Is it logistically harder than on other
projects?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I think recording with The DiSCiPLiNES is easier than many of my other
projects--we know the vibe, the basic formula, there's a template for what will
work in that band. We get together infrequently, but we can write 2-3 songs a
day when we do. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">How does your work with
The Disciplines sit with the rest of your output do you think?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The DiSCiPLiNES music is not so removed from my other work. I get to be
naughty and climb on things and act out, which is what I WANT to do in the
Posies, and I hint at it. Hulk SMASH. Even the get in the audience, look people
in the eye, perform ON them and WITH them not FOR them is a sort of meth-ed up
cousin to my solo shows. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Is there more to come for
The Disciplines?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">We have written some new songs….</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Danzig In The Moonlight – Ken
Stringfellow</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Perhaps the most experimental work he’s ever committed to, this brand
new solo outing, Stringfellow’s fourth in 15 years and first release under his
own name since 2008’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>EP ‘The
Sellout Cover Sessions’, is a reflective, sometimes somber, often darkly
humourous and cynical but always tuneful set of modern pop, alt-country and
delicate electronica songs – even boasting a little old skool soul for good
measure. It’s out on October 2<sup>nd</sup>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What made you decide after
a few years of not doing so, to release a solo record?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I was waiting for the right moment. It's incredible how a year can go
by, when I'm working on so many projects…this happened several times. I went,
happily, down many a rabbit hole (note to readers: rabbit = delicious! The
French perspective). I had many of the songs written. But, obviously, as the
results are plain to see, I wasn't inspired to do it. Otherwise…we would have
done this piece pre-Obama. But, I'm glad I waited, as the conditions that
presented themselves were ideal. For the last couple of years, I've been
working a lot with JB Meijers, a Dutch producer, musician, arranger…we've done
many albums for many artists together. And he proposed that we go into this
legendary studio, ICP in Brussels, and cut two albums at once, one for each of
us, with the same musicians, etc. What a great idea, and it totally worked. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Do you approach solo work
very differently to other band work? The buck stops with you so – is there more
pressure?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">There's more freedom, no one second guessing. That's the dirty secret of
art--your ideas are ALWAYS good. I mean, if you're good. If not, you usually
get the hint. But not having to drag someone along to my party is a great,
great thing. And my solo shows or sessions can be any kind of format--I can
play alone, with a band, with an orchestra, with a laptop…it's always Ken Stringfellow.
Strength in being flexible--that's how you build your earthquake-proof
skyscraper, right? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What do you expect from
this record? Do you have particular hopes for it?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Are you kidding? I want everyone to hear this record. I'm very proud of
it, I killed it, nailed it, brought the hammer DOWN. It's the one thing from my
CV that I could play anyone anywhere and think there's no chance their eyes
will wander 30 seconds in or whatever. So, I will not be leaving that to hopes
or expectations. I will be personally, actively…uh, politely, getting people to
take notice and give this record some attention. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What’s your stand-out
track on the new album?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">For stand out tracks, for pure musical out there-ness, I think
"Odorless Colorless Tasteless" my collaboration with Amsterdam's West
Side Trio, a subset of string players from the Metropole Orchestra, is pretty
intense. As it's 2012, and at one point everyone had the end of the world in
their planning for this year, I acknowledge that with two end of the world
songs. The suite "4am Birds/The End of All Light/The Last Radio" is
the objective beauty that the methodical deconstruction of the earth would
contain--fire and surreal light. "Odorless" depicts God, lonely after
bringing the world to an end, essentially unemployed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What’s the next project
you plan to work on?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I have another pretty cool release coming soon, actually, I helped
produce (with Mr. Meijers again) an album for Dutch thespian Carice van Houten.
Very adventurous, moody, and gorgeous album. Basically the same band as on my
album for much of it, plus contributions from Howe Gelb, Steve Shelley, Antony
Hegarty, Marc Ribot…it's quite the bouillabaisse. Her voice is from another
time…like Julie London, or something. I'll be touring with her as well, she'll
be concentrating on the Netherlands to start out with but this record is really
tasty and I think it will catch on. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Thanks!!!"</span></div>
michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-90829676082646239372012-09-17T03:09:00.000-07:002012-09-17T03:09:16.311-07:00carl twobob and staying positive
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I could be using this space to further vent
my anger at that exploitative, throatfucking corporate wannabe bastard Amanda
‘Cunting’ Palmer and her various crimes against legitimacy, art, friendship,
trust and truth over the last few years that peaked so sickeningly last week
with her attempt to steal the very souls from the sleeping, open mouths of her
fans’ children*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I could be using this little corner o’ the
internet to further bemoan the lack of originality, adventure and general care
that went into this years Mercury Prize nominations;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Or, I thought, I could use it for something
positive. After all, that’s why I write about music – fan first, cynic second –
I wanna celebrate and share the things I love. It’s a struggle to keep it that
way sometimes but there’s no point spreading further negative beams of bile and
hate into an already brutalized, moaning, squirming music world when there are
brighter sides to life (and I should know, because I’ve seen them), and so
we’re going to talk about my friend Carl.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Carl has promoted music at my local and
favourite pub, The Fox in Lewisham, for the past 8 years. He’s booked every
band I’ve been in during that time – from when I was in a group that could pack
the place out regularly to the evening Mark, Shaun and I donned animal hats and
played an entirely improvised electronica set to a dozen or so bemused faces,
he’s booked my bands because he’s willing to give people a fair go. Sometimes
even to his own detriment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I know for a fact that he’s gone home
penniless at the end of rough nights where the punters simply didn’t show up,
wrists were not stamped and beer was not bought, while the bands have all taken
home a little something to reimburse them for their efforts. That, as the boys
from the Wire would have it, is just how Carl do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The whole time he’s been promoting there
(and promoting is a key word – unlike almost all other London promoters** he
actually promotes the bands he books because he thinks they deserve to be
heard, because he wants you to see them at this excellent venue and he wants to
be striving towards a positive result for all involved from the punter to the
brewery) he’s been a payoff guy. Everybody gets paid. Every time.*** Even if he
doesn’t.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Aside from that little bit of wonderment
there’s the fact that he’s booked so many awesome bands – the likes of Breton,
William and Gemma Ray all cut their teeth at this venue for this guy. He knows
talent when he sees it and even on a night when the music wasn’t to your taste
you could tell that this wasn’t just some mug of a booker just throwing bands
on to fill spaces. It always made sense in one way or another.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Now this praise isn’t to be taken as some
massive backslap for a mate – Carl and I haven’t always seen eye to eye by any
means – but our mutual respect, both personal and professional has kept us
tight even when our hackles were up with one another.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Carl has put his heart and soul into
booking for the Fox and this Saturday will be the last time he does so, at
least for a little while. People just don’t come to the Fox like they used to,
at least not as regularly or with the same level of enthusiasm. While the
nation’s belt has been tightening the crew at the Fox have been doing
everything they can to keep the place running, healthy and vital (three words
one could easily attribute to the Fox’s amazing landlady Emily). It’s hard
work. Harder than they’d ever let on I shouldn’t wonder.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">For Carl it’s all become a bit too much of
a struggle I suspect. He hasn’t told me his reasons for leaving (albeit
potentially temporarily), nor would I pretend to know with any level of
certainty. All I know is that for me personally this guy has been important. I
never would have met my bandmates were it not for Carl’s nights at the Fox, I
never would have seen Blue Balloon play, we never would have signed him, we
wouldn’t be looking at the band we’re considering for the label now…hell, Mark
and I probably wouldn’t have a label. I’m sure it’s the same for dozens, maybe
hundreds of people who’ve frequented the Fox over the last decade. Their lives just wouldn't be the same.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Maybe live music at this level is never
gonna go back to how it was just a few years ago, maybe the ‘scene’ has had its
way with this little Lewisham bar and moved on, callous whore as it is, and
maybe, just maybe, with a couple of months to ponder his next move and recharge
the musical engine Carl will be back booking, aflame with enthusiasm and
generous measures of scotch. Either way, what fucking fun we’ve all had.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Come and celebrate the Fox and Carl with us
on Saturday 22nd (There's bands on and it'll be awesome) because the places where our memories are made, where the most
important people in our lives congregate and where we have experienced
wonderful things over and over again over so many years don’t just happen by
themselves – those experiences are engineered and facilitated by people like
Carl, and that should never be forgotten. It's not like he's going away - Carl is still running quiz nights, club nights and so on in the immediate future - maybe you should tap him on the shoulder when you see him and ask him when he's making his return to full time live music promotion?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">If you value your local pub, venue and
promoter then fucking go there, spend the little money you have and tell them ‘thank
you’ at the end of the night. Because otherwise you’ll lose the things you
love.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Come back soon mate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">XMichael</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">*she didn’t actually technically do this</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">**I said ALMOST all, don’t get your panties
bunched</span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">***shaun still reckons carl owes him a few quid from foxfest 3 years ago</span>
michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194574138430819865.post-23991327152999475242012-09-06T03:44:00.001-07:002012-09-06T03:44:38.006-07:00J Mascis/Dinosaur interview transcriptmornin'<br />
<br />
i've had a fun few days - fans of the milk really really enjoy calling me a cunt it seems - and it slipped my mind that i'd promised the interested few (and by few i mean approximately 2) that i'd blog the transcript of the j mascis interview that was published in it's neatly abridged and smartly edited version on Q online a few weeks back. here's the link to that: <a href="http://news.qthemusic.com/2012/08/qa_dinosaur_jrs_j_mascis_-_on.html">http://news.qthemusic.com/2012/08/qa_dinosaur_jrs_j_mascis_-_on.html</a><br />
<br />
so here's the full thing, replete with awkward pauses, much confused giggling, a meandering intro and some none-more-fanboy questions...<br />
<br />
(as you may be able to tell, i absolutely love dinosaur jr and the distorted wave of guitar they rode in on):<br />
<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">J Mascis Q & A</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Over
a near three decade career on the alt side of country and at the business end
of a pedal rack that would put most metal players to shame, Dinosaur Jr’s J
Mascis has remained a reticent and slightly mysterious figure. Whether he’s
playing solo acoustic, thrashing it out in the day job or, most notoriously,
confronted by something that makes him as uncomfortable and unhappy as can be –
an interview – he’s remained a ‘music speaks for itself’ kinda guy.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Legend,
and indeed various Youtube clips, will try to tell you that Mascis is a silent,
monosyllabic Grinch of a man who, despite being heralded for his evident
talents, is no friend of the inquisition. With some trepidation, on the eve of
release of Dinosaur Jr’s mighty return to form album ‘I Bet On Sky’ I spoke
with J about everything from the band’s reunited original lineup to volume
levels via cyanide suicides and romance in music and found a warm, funny guy who
just happens to not really have a great deal to say about Dinosaur Jr. Yes, the
pauses are long, the drawl is as slow as you’d expect and J was either washing
up or building a shed during the conversation but, you know, you can’t have it
all. Or whatever, man…</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Hi,
how the devil are you?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Alright.” (Noises of kids and dogs in
background)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Sounds
like you’re having a busy day today?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. There’s a lot of stuff going on.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Have
you been doing a lot of press for the record?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Uh, yeah. I’m starting to.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">First
congratulations on making such a great record with ‘I Bet On Sky’</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Thanks. Thank you.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">No
worries. So, the new record is out next month. How are you feeling about it?
Have you got particular expectations for it? A particular feeling about it?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“I don’t know. Hoping for the best…yeah.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Was
your intention for ‘I Bet On Sky’ to be as accessible as it is? It’s a good
record but also really commercial?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Uh, no. I just kinda let the songs dictate
where the thing is going.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">So
you never start a record thinking ‘this should have a particular feel to it’?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Sometimes, you know like on my acoustic
record (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2011’s Several Shades Of Why</i>)
I just wanted to be acoustic so that was (long pause) …erm…I had to keep that
in mind the whole time. But this one I didn’t really have any idea. It goes out
in a lot of different directions. Whatever was appropriate for the songs.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Are
you happy with this record?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Oh, sure. Yeah… am I happy with the
record? Yeah. Why not.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">A
track like ‘Stick A Toe In’ harks back to tunes like ‘Thumb’ and ‘Get Me’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">(from ‘93s ‘Where You Been’)</span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"> a little bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you enjoy moving away from the
faster, heavier stuff into more delicate territory like that?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. Yeah. I just…it depends on what song
comes out at that moment…I just go with it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">This
is your tenth record under the Dinosaur Jr name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is this a legacy? Did you see yourself being in music for
this length of time when you started Deep Wound?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“I didn’t really imagine being alive this
long. I guess.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">(Laughs)Really?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“(Laughs) Yeah, it’s true.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">M: I
think a lot of people feel like that in their teens and twenties, like they’re
not gonna make it past thirty so have fun now…</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah, enjoy it while you’re here (laughs)”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Sticking
with the early days – ‘You’re Living All Over Me’ was a big breakthrough for
you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you find it a strange
experience going from being an unknown band to touring with Sonic Youth and
you’re on SST? Was it something you wanted?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“We really, really wanted to be on SST.
That was our big goal. That was cool when that happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Long pause) Yeah…that was when we
started looking out front of house and we started to have some fans…You know,
like, more of them. I remember playing shows when the soundman was throwing
bottles at us. That stopped. “</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Don’t
you hate it when the soundman throws bottles?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“(Laughs) Yeah.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">This
reminds me though – your live shows that I’ve seen over the years have been
crushingly loud. Are you intent on having it as loud as is humanly possible?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Well. Yeah. It’s loud enough so that it
sounds right. We’re not just trying to be loud.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">So
it’s not volume for the sake of volume it’s just what you want the songs to
sound like?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">So,
‘Bug’ came after ‘You’re Living All Over Me’. A lot of Dinosaur Jr fans peg
that as their favourite of your albums. You’ve been quoted as saying you don’t
like it. You played it in full at Alexandra Palace last summer (</span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">as part of an ATP show
supporting Flaming Lips</span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">)– do you feel the same way about it? Was playing the album strange?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“It was interesting. I probably…I
definitely like it better now. “</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">You
got used to it?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah, you know. Before…it reminded me of a
bad time but now we’re just trying to make new memories I guess so…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">So
was it on ‘Bug’ that things kinda went wrong with the original line-up </span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">(Lou Barlow departed to
concentrate on Sebadoh at that time</span></i><span lang="EN-US">)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">?</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah…but it was before. So the recording
of ‘Bug’ was pretty hard. We weren’t speaking and…so most of the album I did by
myself except for a few days…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">It
must have been a really tough time for you emotionally?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. It’s weird. It was weird.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">With
‘Green Mind’ and ‘Where You Been’ you got a level of success. You were on TV,
MTV, on the BBC in the UK. Was that strange without the original line-up?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“We still had Murph at that point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Murph was still playing on ‘Where You
Been’…people just did whatever they did you know…people came out of the band ‘cos
they couldn’t do it any more. (Long pause) It seemed like a natural progression
at the time. “</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">It
was early ‘90s you did the Rollercoaster tour with JAMC, blur and MBV. </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Do
you have good memories from that? Was that a fun thing to do?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. That was fun , definitely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Unbelievably long pause)”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Did
you hang out with the other bands?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. Jesus and Mary Chain were the most
anti-social people. I thought we were bad until I saw those guys. (Laughter)
They really couldn’t deal with people at all. I guess Blur was the most
friendly and having the best time.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">They
were fairly crazy around that time…</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“They were having fun and they were the
most sociable. Everyone else was a bit socially maladjusted.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">This
is a fairly obscure question. In the ‘Sonic Youth: 1992, The Year Punk Broke’
film you have a surreal exchange with Kim Gordon and you saying ‘Some guy set
himself on fire since Uma’s been gone’. I could never work out what that meant.
Care to let us know?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Oh well, that um…in Amhurst some kid lit
himself on fire on the town common in protest…to protest the war or something?
That’s just sad and bizarre…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">So
it was something that actually happened?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. I remember driving through town and
there being yellow tape up on the common and…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">That’s
crazy</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah, a lot of crazy stuff happened there.
Another kid, a friend’s brother killed himself on college TV. Yeah. Made his
own cyanide. Then he drank it on TV on one of the college TV shows. Everyone
thought he was joking so they left him there, everybody left him on the ground.
They didn’t realize he was dead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Well.
I asked. At least I know now. Moving on. When the Dinosaur Jr name was on
hiatus and you were playing with The Fog, did that feel like a totally
different band?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“It definitely felt like it to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I just hired guys to play it’s not gonna
convey what I’m feeling and they’re just..they have different limitations.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">You’ve
always done things outside Dinosaur though like the solo album, Heavy Blanket </span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">(J’s instrumental stoner
band),</span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">
soundtracks etc. Do you want to continue that?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Oh yeah. Probably.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Do
you have anything in mind?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Not right now. I have an Oi! Band in the
works.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">(Stunned silence) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Really?! Who’s that with?</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“(Very long pause) Oh. Just some friends.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">That
should sound interesting at the least.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“(Laughs) Right.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Of
the things you’ve done outside Dinosaur Jr what’s been your favourite?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“I like this album Upsidedown Cross <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(doom
metal band) </i>that I played drums on. Um. That’s my favourite thing I’ve been
involved in.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">The
original line-up coming back together </span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">(Lou Barlow and Murph returned in 2005</span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">) Was that a Disney
homecoming or was it more awkward than that?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“It was probably more awkward.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">But
you worked through it?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. Still working.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">You’re
on the road a lot since you got back together and you have a ton of dates for
later in the year. Is that a conscious decision that you want to be touring a
lot?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. (Really, agonisingly long pause)”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">So
do you just enjoy playing live or is it that it’s a productive thing to do to
push the record and get the music out to people?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Well. Both you know. Just kinda like… It’s
good to get out of the house a little bit.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Sure.
Are you coming to the UK this year?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“I don’t know what’s going on but I’m sure
we will.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Good
news. So apparently the recording of this album was easier than previous ones.
Do you think it has been a different process on this record?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. It seemed the others were a little
harder…I don’t know about better, but…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Well
you can only judge by the results can’t you?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Dinosuar
Jr make romantic music. Am I really off-base in thinking that?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“(Laughs) Um. I don’t know. “</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">There
seems like there’s a lot of heartbreak in there…</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Well yeah. That always makes for the best
songs.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Do
you feel like you’ve still got things to express after all this time?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. Um (Extreme, life-threatening pause)
As long as you’re alive you’re gonna want to express yourself somehow.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Do
you have any ideas on a long term future for the band? It seems you could keep
touring, keep releasing records for years to come – the fanbase is still there…</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“I just play it by ear. We go day to day. Ya
know. We’ve got this tour planned and we’ll do that…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Well
yeah I suppose if you’re contractually obliged to do the shows I guess you’d
better do them?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Right”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">One
last geek question. There’s an awesome guitar sound at the end of ‘Don’t
Pretend You Didn’t Know’ </span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">(from the forthcoming ‘I Bet On Sky’).</span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"> What is that?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Which number song is it?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Let
me see. Sorry J, just give me one second</span></b><span lang="EN-US">… <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(I actually go and check I-tunes)</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“I can only relate to them by the numbers…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Sorry
to keep you, J. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the very
first track…</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Ah ok. It’s a guitar synth.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Excellent.
Are you still as much of a fan of effects pedals? Do you still have love for
the vast pedal set-up?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah. Yeah.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Well
thanks for speaking to me. Good luck with the record.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Thanks.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">I’ll
speak to you another time.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Yeah, thanks , bye.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">A
deep, deep exhalation of breath from me.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">@michaeljamesh</span></div>
michael james hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15289398251237164037noreply@blogger.com