the dirt is temporary

Why I'm not ashamed to say that The Midnight Organ Fight by Frightened Rabbit is the album of the year

2008-12-27T09:04:00.000-08:00

Here’s what’s wrong with The Midnight Organ Fight. The vocals are generally overwrought, barely in tune, and blessed with a Celtic yelp that we all thought we’d never have to hear again when the Cranberries fucked off. There are some appalling lyrics that occasionally rise to the surface with a dreadful jar – ‘It’s a choo-choo train, a rocket launch’ anyone? – and let’s just say that the drumming leaves something to be desired in terms of subtlety; it sounds like they’re being played with the hind legs of a cow. Most damning of all, if this album drifted out of the window of a passing car, the immediate assumption would be that Snow Patrol had decided to release an album of Counting Crows covers.

But here’s the thing. Despite all of these patent flaws, and the perpetual nagging feeling that you should somehow be embarrassed to be listening to it, The Midnight Organ Fight is indisputably the best album of 2008. It is a record of searing honesty, an unashamedly open vein of crushing, contradictory emotion. It is a record that, at once, it makes you fear for the sanity of the writer and yet be incredibly thankful that someone had the courage to so openly address issues that indie rock all too often ignores, or deals with only when doused in a safety coating of hipster obfuscation and irony, frozen by the fear of commitment, of real meaning, of saying something that could be taken down and used as unfriendly future evidence when the wind turns.

Ostensibly, The Midnight Organ Fight falls neatly into the classic break-up album category, not a genre lacking in members. But this is not a cliché ridden sop to some vague image of idealised love that exists only in hindsight. This is a self-lacerating paean to that all-too-real whirligig of regret, confusion, mourning and misunderstanding that accompanies the drawn out death of a relationship. It portrays in all its stark glory the paralysing disorientation that follows the dropping away of what you thought was the world, and of the first timid steps that follow the realisation that you are the only person stopping the building of a new one. It is so real it smarts, basically. It is nothing less than a still-beating, cracked heart lain out on the dissection table.

Viewed in this way, the music’s obvious anthemics become a boon rather than a flaw. When dealing so directly with emotion this bald, technical sideshows and attention grabbing song structures become another form of retraction – how much braver it is to lay out lyrics like The Modern Leper’s

‘Is that you in front of me?
Coming back for even more of exactly the same
You must be a masochist to love a modern leper
On his last leg’

on top of a chorus that instantly burrows its way into your skull, rather than bury them beneath layers of self-gratifying noise and cowardly experimentation. This is an album that deals with a pain and a healing that is universal, and it is entirely appropriate, if not necessary, that it should do so within a musical context that is equally accessible. Even if it does sound a bit like Snow Patrol.

SeeqPod - Playable Search

David Foster Wallace 1962 - 2008

2008-09-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

In what was probably the best interview David Foster Wallace ever gave, he described how his masterpiece Infinite Jest drew upon the ‘particular sadness’ of living in middle-class America at the turn of the century. ‘[It’s] something that doesn't have very much to do with physical circumstances, or the economy, or any of the stuff that gets talked about in the news,’ he said. ‘It's more like a stomach-level sadness. I see it in myself and my friends in different ways. It manifests itself as a kind of lostness.’

Suicide is an act borne of too many angles, of too many personally esoteric conflictions and contradictions, for clear lines of cause and effect to be drawn between past words and final actions. Who can say if it was this existential drift that finally led to Wallace’s suicide last week? Too easy, too dismissive. What is true is that it was there. It was there at the end just as it was there throughout his writing; forever pressing upwards towards the surface of his prose, waiting for a hole to appear through which to seep and pervade.

I read Infinite Jest earlier this year after following my three strike rule – when I hear or read three mentions of the same book from different sources within quick succession, it must be read. To pretend it was an easy task would be hubris, and a dirty lie. 1000-plus pages (including 100 pages of alternately intricate and maddening end notes) of huge slabs of indent-less text that gave a new meaning to the word dense; a dizzyingly Tolstoy-esque range of painstakingly rounded characters; a confusing insistence on acronyms and a prodigious vocabulary that required a dictionary-check at least once a page (a result of DFW’s childhood dictionary reading habit). There were days when I got truly sick of lugging the great thing around with me. But, when it suddenly clicked, 200 pages in, it became an almost vicarious pleasure.

Never before have I felt such an emotional connection with a book by an author classed as post-modern. Yes, games were played with structure, form and language. But while the majority of post-modern authors, save Vonnegut, can deal with the emotional only through mockery and ridicule and games, and would rather dance upon the surface of things than risk flinging themselves off the all-knowing fence provided by an intellectual world happily devoid of even the mere search for truth, the themes of Infinite Jest – addiction, depravity, loss, confusion, longing, lostness – were rendered with such sympathy and belief and understanding, along with often wicked humour and always dazzling language, that its size was no longer daunting but wonderfully welcome. Wallace did not stand above events, laughing and congratulating himself on reaching an author’s higher plane of consciousness. He threw himself into the heart of them, refusing to forget that even heavyweight post-modern writers fall in love and get paralysed by grief sometimes too.

The point about post-modernism is an important one, as it is what turned Wallace, in my view, from the self-indulgent lyrical exhibitionist that his critics would have him, to the greatest writer of his generation. In the same interview quoted above, Wallace argued that much of modern literature’s cultural marginalisation stems from contempt for the reader.

‘If you, the writer, succumb to the idea that the audience is too stupid, then there are two pitfalls,’ he warned. ‘Number one is the avant-garde pitfall, where you have the idea that you're writing for other writers, so you don't worry about making yourself accessible or relevant. You worry about making it structurally and technically cutting edge: involuted in the right ways, making the appropriate intertextual references, making it look smart. Not really caring about whether you're communicating with a reader who cares something about that feeling in the stomach which is why we read. Then, the other end of it is very crass, cynical, commercial pieces of fiction that are done in a formulaic way - essentially television on the page - that manipulate the reader, that set out grotesquely simplified stuff in a childishly riveting way.'

He continued: 'What's weird is that I see these two sides fight with each other and really they both come out of the same thing, which is a contempt for the reader, an idea that literature's current marginalization is the reader's fault. The project that's worth trying is to do stuff that has some of the richness and challenge and emotional and intellectual difficulty of avant-garde literary stuff, stuff that makes the reader confront things rather than ignore them, but to do that in such a way that it's also pleasurable to read.’

That is precisely what Wallace did. His work can be viewed as a marvel of technical mastery - the endless, homeric wordplay, the injokes, the effortless shifts of time, space and form – or of obsessive attention to detail and accuracy (I have never read such informed descriptions of drug taking, alcoholism, or – you’ll get this when you read it – tennis in a work of fiction). But, most importantly, it does all that while escaping from the straitjacket of intellectual detachment. It hits you in the gut while satisfying the head.

In his preface to the 2007 edition, Dave Eggers writes of ‘the constant tragic undercurrent’ that runs throughout Infinite Jest. ‘[It] concerns a people who are completely lost, who are lost within their own families and lost within their nation, and lost within their time, and who only want some sort of direction or purpose or sense of community or love.’ It seems that David Foster Wallace himself was one of those people. And now he is lost to the rest of us too.

Two points on this please

2008-08-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

Fujiya & Miyagi - Lightbulbs

Kingsnorth - Diary of an ex-cynic

2008-08-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

The dreadlocked eco-hero on the far side of the wooden barricade looked at the plastic vessels of sin he had been handed with thinly disguised disgust.

‘Two Sainsbury’s bags?’

I could almost smell the disdain on his breath.

‘Yeah, mine. Thanks.’

I quickly grabbed the offending articles, kindly hoisted over the guarded entrance by the otherwise friendly sentries, trying to work out whether I should be embarrassed or irritated. A day of work, ninety minutes on the train, a bus journey, a damp two mile walk, a full police search, another walk and a final police check to get to the Kingsnorth climate camp, and it was my post-office dash for bread and cheese that was spinning his moral compass out of control. It was only a moment, a flash of the eyes quickly extinguished, but it was enough to be tangible.

One of the reasons I have always felt uneasy about wholeheartedly throwing my lot in with the environmental movement, aside from the godawful music, is this disproportionate attribution of moral weight to individual action. Yes, individuals should recycle, they should change their light bulbs, they should temper their travel by car and air. But when the London sky is illuminated every night by thousands of glowing offices, when businessmen fly halfway across the globe and back for weekly meetings they could easily hold via webcam, when governments continue to chop down every tree that gets in a cow’s way and sanction investment worth millions in the very same means of energy production that got us in this searing, choking mess in the first place, in full complicitous knowledge of the damage done, the idea that my forgetting to bring a plastic bag to the supermarket is going to play the crucial role in any impending ecological disaster is, frankly, insulting.

Which is precisely why I went to the camp at Kingsnorth. For this was no finger-wagging lecture or communal tut – this was real. The attempt to shut down this Kent coal-fired power station was true direct action, not the shadowplay of gestures springing from disapproval or one-upmanship. It was action aimed straight at the heart of the problem, action with drive and focus and unity of purpose; action that refused to be splintered into a weak shower of individual harangues.

How it is needed. E-On plan to replace the aging current power station with another one fired with coal, one which will produce more carbon annually than a country the size of Ghana. It will wipe out every carbon reduction achieved by renewables and individuals in this country in a single stroke. When science has clearly spelled out the consequences of such a scheme, when our leaders alternate between wringing their hands and pointing their fingers at China and India’s relentless expansion of coal power, when the alternatives arrived long ago – this is true madness. This is the insanity of the man who, seeing the fire straight ahead, shuts his eyes and plunges straight into the flames, for no other reason than that was the way he was going.

Aside from the prickly arrival, the Climate Camp was a cynicism-shedding revelation. My only previous experience of anarchists (their ecological wing were the central force behind Kingsnorth) had been on Iraqi and Palestinian marches, where their inane rhetoric soon tires. But here, the level of organisation and efficiency displayed on site was a welcome contrast from the erraticism of their ideology.

The camp was split on geographical origins, with each region centred upon a food tent, which provided communal vegan meals in exchange for a small donation. All power was renewable, most from the array of solar panels scattered about the site. Group discussions were arranged through a series of hand signals – one finger raised for a question, two for direct response to a speaker, jazz hands either side of your head for agreement, by your waist for dissent – which looked pretty stupid, but did ensure some semblance of discursive order, not something normally associated with leftwing debate. Most impressive of all was the toilet system, from which Michael Eavis could certainly pick up a few pointers. Wheelie bins filled with compost and sawdust were placed under elevated wooden shacks to provide for the more solid requirements and remarkably, didn’t smell. For the men, bales of straw were piled under tarpaulins, with the ammonia-soaked remains to be taken to a farm and allowed to compost, before being used to grow potatoes. As the poster attached to the urinals declared, it takes a remarkable movement to look its own shit in the face and still produce something from it.

I missed most of the widely reported confrontation with the police, including the 5am riot squad raids, due to not arriving until Friday night, but it was clear from the intrusive searches at the entrance, the floodlit squads at each corner of the field and constant drone of helicopters above that the force was taking no chances. At times, it all seemed a little contrived, on both sides – there was a sense that certain sections of the police and the protestors were willing things to kick off so as to feel their presence legitimised, to create a simulacrum of past riots in order to be able to tell a few tall tales down the pub afterwards.

On the Saturday, the day of action, my hopes at canoing down the river – the advertised plan was to attack the power station by land, air and sea - were dashed by the unexpected seriousness of the more hardcore activists, who had spent the preceding week holding training courses, brandishing blueprints and building replicas of pointed railings and electric fences on which to practice for the big day. I was therefore reduced to dressing up as a penguin and waddling along with the families and the other less military-minded campers. We arrived at the station at midday, where banners were unfurled, climate change crime scene tape wrapped around the gates, and hordes of police stood grimly by. A handful of protestors had managed to break into the site itself, but it was hardly the point anymore. It was enough, for now, to know that we had arrived, that our point was being made and heard.

As ever with these things, the array of speakers ranged from the lucid intensity of the local campaigner to the incoherent ramblings of the aged flower-child. And, as my friend remarked, it would be nice to be told once in a while that we were present in the middle of a great movement, or at least a third of the way in, not constantly assured that we’re at the beginning, in the vanguard, of something wondrous yet to come. I’m only 25, and I must have been at the start of ‘a great global uprising’ that is about to shake the world to its core about 30 times already. To paraphrase Jerry Lee Lewis, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lotta shakin’ going on thus far.

But then, that’s not really the point. The response cannot be controlled, but the stimulus can, and the Kingsnorth camp was nothing if not stimulating. Plans are afoot to maintain a constant presence at the station in the months ahead, with road blocks and check points set up to prevent future building work. It will be well worth joining in, even if you have to bring a plastic bag to sit on.

Liars>>>Deerhunter>>>High Places @ Koko 17/06/08

2008-06-18T01:49:00.000-07:00

I never realised Angus Andrew was such a doofus. Not terminology I’d normally use, not being a 14 year old Californian princess, but there’s no other word for it. Even at their most accessible - as on their latest, self-titled album - Liars are not an easy listen, and when one delves, as they do regularly tonight, into the murky depths of their Drum’s Not Dead and They Were Wrong, So We Drowned material, the incongruity of such traumatic and occasionally terrifying music being fronted by a pirouetting buffoon in an oversized backwards boating blazer and comedy baggy trousers becomes a little overwhelming. It’s always good when a band doesn’t take themselves too seriously, but there is a line, and dancing around in a little circle pulling funny faces and making jazz hands while the aural equivalent of a nuclear holocaust in Hades is going on around you definitely crosses it.

Try as he might, though, Andrews’s perpetual clowning can’t detract from what is a startlingly impressive Liars performance. Nimbly skipping across a back catalogue that is as stylistically diverse as it is avowedly groundbreaking – they seamlessly switch from propulsive punk funk to primal experimentalism via cyber-noisecore faster than most bands can pull on an oversized backwards boating blazer – Liars specialise in constructing a fearsome sound collage of razor blades and baseball bats: at once scything and thudding, screeching and shuddering. Guitarist Aaron Hemphill is chief suspect here – guitar ratcheted up high, bespectacled like a young Albini, he alternates between wrenching chunks of searing fuzz from his fretboard and leaping behind a booming effects-laden drum kit.

Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack! and a wistfully mournful The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack – both from Drum’s Not Dead, surely their magnum opus – are the predictable highlights, but a resounding Plastercasts of Everything leaves the question of which version of Liars (the harbingers of percussionist hellfire? The dumb snotty punkers? The careering jokers? Err, maybe not) is the definitive open to debate.

Tonight is a joint headline show with Deerhunter, and Bradford Cox’s crew don’t let down their side of the bargain. Cox is a far less simpering frontman than I feared from his ‘ooh, look at my funny poo’ blog, and as he stands, red hoodie covering his stick thin Marfan syndrome arms, relentlessly pulling out a single chord as the band reach Octet’s eschatological climax, he looks nothing less than domineering. The volume regularly verges on the unbearable, their live sound far closer to the white noise of mid-90s Spiritualized or My Bloody Valentine than the bubbling undercurrents of their records. Forthcoming single Nothing Ever Happened is displayed in all its neo-Neu glory, Wash Off threatens to grind the crowd to dust with its scatter gun shots of tremolo and the only real disappointment is the odd lack of Little Kids, the stand alone highlight of new album Microcastle, if not their entire career to date.

A quick mention must be made of bottom-of-the-billers High Places, who consist of a boy thwacking what looks like a xylophone from a Patrick Moore wet dream, in that it seems to have the capacity to make any sound from earth or beyond (particularly favouring resonating tribal pounding and twinkling toy boxes), and a girl looping chants of half-remembered nursery rhymes into a melange of winsome melody and psychedelic squall. It’s pretty great, and deserves a far greater audience than the handful of early arrivals who were lucky enough to witness it.

Gig of the year then? So far, perhaps. Maybe if the crowd weren't so predictably jaded that they seemed to swallow all of the bands' energy as soon as it was powered out of the speakers. Let’s wait until My Bloody Valentine on Monday first…

SeeqPod - Playable Search

Dananananaykroyd - Sissy Hits

2008-06-06T09:32:00.000-07:00

For a week in October 2006, Dananananaykroyd were the News of the World's favourite band. Then their singer quit. Perhaps he wasn't expecting such a rapturous tabloid reception to the release of debut single Totally Bone, although I'm not sure why, given the Screws' reputation for tireless support of the Scottish underground post-hardcore scene. Anyway, he left, and, despite promoting their drummer to singer – a failsafe tactic for success if ever I saw one – and then drafting in two more drummers to replace him, Dananananaykroyd disappeared. Which was a pity, because Britain isn't exactly overburdened with twelve-legged schizophrenic hyper-post-punk-hardcore bands.

But now, 18 months and a couple of aborted comebacks later, they've finally returned, offering a six track EP in penance. Worth the wait? Well, let's just say Rebekah Wade won't be disappointed. Somehow managing to incorporate elements of every worthwhile movement in guitar music since 1980 in the space of six songs, Sissy Hits is a record overflowing with ideas and ambition; the band have the confidence to consistently let their music take its time to gleefully explore all possible tangents before making a triumphant rendezvous.

Lead track The Greater Than Symbol And The Hash is a case in point – those duelling drummers open proceedings on their own, before Argument-era Fugazi guitar chops herald the arrival of vocals that rapidly shift from a yelp to a bark as the song suddenly explodes into a double time sprint for the line. Another tempo switch and the skies turn dark, the guitars now roaring where they once twitched, before collapsing in a feedback ridden heap.

The rest of the EP continues in a similar vein, never settling for one direction when ten will do. It's an exhilarating and refreshingly disorientating listen - all Cap'n Jazz-style technicality one moment, At The Drive-In power-drive the next. Most importantly, for all their technical mastery and invention, Danananaykroyd never forget that their primary concern is to entertain – they sound like they're having the most fun you can have with a bunch of guitars, and it's truly infectious. And if that's good enough for the News of the World, then who are we to argue?

Further linkage

2008-05-09T03:47:00.000-07:00

More bits and pieces...
Foxes ' relegation has been a long time coming - The Guardian
real tearjerker, this one. Some frankly hilarious comments as well, including 'Hank Scorpio is a nob'. That kind of reaction is what dreams are made of

'I always wanted to be different': the return of Krautrock - The Guardian
would you believe it, this one also comes in paper form

Many a mixle meks a muxle, ye ken?

2008-04-22T04:09:00.000-07:00

I've been pointed in the direction of a pretty ace website where you can compile an online mixtape, as well as listen to the rest of the world's attempts. Having nothing but beautiful memories of the hours and hours I used to spend making tapes for people who could never listen to them with the same level of intensity that went into their making, arranging and rearranging running orders and thinking of suitably witty LP titles, as well as the equally genuine pleasure I derived from learning of new music via the reciprocal tapes of friends and messageboard randoms - my first horizon-shredding listens to Godspeed and Pavement were from mix tapes sent by internet proxy-friends when I was 16 - I couldn't resist. You'll notice I still haven't lost the knack of the witty title.

If It's Not The Side Effects Of The Cocaine, I'm Thinking That It Must Be Love
mistermatt.muxtape.com

1 - Homosapian - Pete Shelley
2 - Manchasm - Future of the Left
3 - Forecast Fascist Future - Of Montreal
4 - Blackcurrant Jam - Grizzly Bear
5 - Mykonos - Fleet Foxes
6 - Sleeper Hold - No Age
7 - Bright Tomorrow - Fuck Buttons
8 - Tunguska - Prolapse
9 - Station to Station - David Bowie

A very convenient truth indeed, actually

2008-04-15T01:49:00.000-07:00

It’s an old trick. What better way to rule inadmissible any potential accusation of bias regarding a controversial thesis on race or immigration than by assigning a non-WASP face to the messenger role? Whether it’s Baroness Sayeeda Warsi ‘legitimising’ BNP opinion for the Tories, or the BNP themselves reeling out what must surely be the most brazenly boneheaded man in the world to trumpet their legendary concern for the Jewish community, the belief that the co-option of an ‘ethnic’ voice gives a speech or pamphlet writer carte blanche is one of the more unpleasant and patronising assumptions generally held by those engaged in public discourse.

It would be a shame to lump Rageh Omaar in with these unfortunate characters but sod it, he’s never going to read this, and the sad fact is that his current series, ‘Immigration – the inconvenient truth’, deserves nothing less. If Richard Littlejohn or Jon Gaunt travelled around the country finding a handful of idiotic/paranoid/racist/bored white people willing to spout half baked theories about racial shifts in British culture on ITV it would be instantly and rightly dismissed as just another serving of their puerile partiality. That this programme is the product of respectable Channel 4 and presented by a nice British-Somali young man is presumably supposed to lend an air of sophisticated concern to whole thing, as well as a reassurance that there couldn’t possibly be anything untoward in its conclusions. What it actually amounts to is Omaar abusing his heritage by allowing it to be used as a pseudo-a priori defence against legitimate criticism. He’s helped in this by a godawful ‘specially commissioned You Gov poll’ and an actor reading out Enoch Powell speeches.

Rageh was in my hometown of Leicester this week. Leicester is famously set to become the first UK city with a majority non-white population, and Omaar spent time visiting what he described as the Somali St Matthews estate, the Hindu area around Belgrave Gate, the Muslim dominated Highfields and the ‘white enclave’ of Braunstone. His argument was that while Leicester remains free of the racially/culturally motivated conflict seen in London and some northern towns, the city instead plays out Powell’s predictions of disconnected communities living geographically proximate yet utterly separate lives. Supporting evidence came from a Muslim talking about ‘our services, our libraries and Islamic schools’ in the Highfields and a man from Braunstone who attempted with scant success to muster some enthusiasm for what Leicester used to be, before there was ‘a black face on every corner’.

To argue that there is never any racial/cultural tension or suspicion in Leicester would be foolish, as would to insist that the city inhabits some kind of utopian rainbow nation parallel universe. But Omaar’s portrayal of what I still consider to be my home did not ring true; it felt like he had chosen his argument before filming, and was intent on moulding everything he saw or heard into that shape, whether it would fit or not.

The Highfields, for example, is a largely Muslim area, yes. But there is still a huge Afro-Caribbean community living there, there are still white working class families. There are a number of mosques, where children can learn the Qur’an after school, but there is also Leicester’s largest synagogue. The services referred to are not ‘Muslim’, but are for, and used by, all residents. In other words, Highfields is not some Islamic ghetto, retracting into itself and abandoning all relations with its surrounds, just as Belgrave, its northerly neighbour (and you’d be hard pressed to know where one area began and the other ended), is not the Hindu equivalent. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous, and lazy.

As for the concerns of the soon-to-be white minority, well, you will always find someone who is willing to articulate a ‘fear’, or a sense of being the last stand, the ‘Alamo’, as the aforementioned Braunstone resident put it. But again, the concept of Braunstone, and the white working class Omaar allows the area to represent, existing as an island, with residents rarely daring to venture from their secluded sanctuary, is simply not accurate. If Rageh had walked through the city centre on a Saturday afternoon, he would have seen the very definition of multi-cultural consummation; people from all areas of the city, including poor old Braunstone, united in their love of identikit high street shopping.

If he had carried on walking, turning the corner from the clock tower, he would have seen an even clearer example of the integration his programme chose to ignore. Leicester market, ‘Europe’s largest undercover market’ as the council is ever trumpeting, is a true historic bulwark of the city’s white working class. Yes, Gary Lineker’s family still have a stall there. It could not fit in more with what Gordon Brown is desperate to define as ‘British’, not that he or any of his government would ever deign to shop there. But what is instantly noticeable is that while the stall holders are still drawn from the same white working class stock as in previous generations, their clientele are now overwhelmingly Asian, and often first generation immigrants. While the white population has all but abandoned the market in favour of the huge superstores and shopping complexes on the edge of town, the Somali, Hindu and Muslim communities have not. In effect, therefore, the heart of the city centre’s white tradition is being upheld by the very immigrants accused of refusing to engage with it. If that isn’t integration in its truest sense, I don’t know what is.

But Rageh Omaar chose not to look at the market, or the pubs, like the one around the corner from my Dad’s house, which are often far more genuinely mixed than anything I’ve seen in London. Leicester is not perfect – the ridiculously white crowds at the Walkers Stadium attest to that – but it deserves more than Omaar was willing to give it last night. Rather than attempt to pull out every negative it could find, regardless of its relative weight, or make vaguely threatening predictions about future coherence, I can’t help wishing that the programme had taken the opportunity to celebrate Leicester for what it is: city-shaped proof that, if supported, multiculturalism can and does work. But perhaps that was an ‘inconvenient truth’ too far.

My continuing campaign against Foals continues...

2008-04-13T06:01:00.000-07:00

I don't even mind the album that much, but there is something intensely irritating about them.
The Quest For Rock's Holy Grail - The Guardian

The Standard has a vested interest in this election

2008-03-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

In August 2007, London mayor Ken Livingstone - facing re-election this May - warned that Conservative candidate Boris Johnson would be ‘the most formidable opponent I will face in my political career’. He was not mistaken. Despite Tory MP Johnson’s reputation as a lovable yet gaffe-prone buffoon, more comfortable on the TV gameshow circuit than in the corridors of power, the latest Evening Standard/YouGov poll (March 17th) shows him on 49 per cent, 12 points ahead of the Labour incumbent.

Johnson has certainly smartened up his act, ditching his trademark stuttering quips and unkempt blond mop for a slick new website and advice from Lynton Crosby, the mastermind behind former Australian prime minister John Howard’s four consecutive election victories. And the going has been good. Accusations of racism (he once referred to black people as ‘picaninnies’) have been so far successfully dodged, and his proclamations on crime and the reintroduction of the traditional ‘Routemaster’ bus have been generously reported.

Livingstone, meanwhile, has suffered a torrid few weeks. Fresh allegations about close advisor Lee Jasper’s financial conduct emerged on a near daily basis, culminating in an embarrassing resignation on March 4th. A recent prime time TV programme labelled Livingstone a ‘bully’ and a ‘coward’, while journalist Andrew Gilligan – he of the Iraq dossier ‘sexed up’ controversy - has been ruthless in his desire to expose what he sees as Livingstone’s despotic tendencies. At the forefront of the attacks has been Gilligan’s employer, the Standard, London’s only evening newspaper.

The paper has made no secret of its antipathy towards Livingstone, particularly after the Standard accused Livingstone of making anti-Semitic remarks to one of its reporters in February 2005. News and comment criticising Livingstone are an everyday occurrence, and the mayor is known to be concerned about what he views as the ‘easy ride’ Johnson receives in comparison. It is no surprise, therefore, to see the Standard’s name attached to a poll predicting a substantial victory for the Conservative.

Johnson was cautious in his reaction to the poll, saying only that the results were ‘encouraging’. He has good reason. In a city of 7.4m people and 5.5m registered voters, the Standard sells fewer than 300,000 copies a day, a substantial number of which go to commuters not eligible to vote in the mayoral elections. While the paper’s outlook reflects that of its readership – white professionals, classic ABC1s – its influence on the majority of those who actually live within Greater London is less pronounced, particularly amongst the black and ethnic minority communities from which Livingstone draws much of his support.

The Standard’s vocal campaigns, such as those waged against the congestion charge or the introduction of the long, articulated ‘bendy buses’, may resonate with those who own cars or use taxis, but they do not with the vast swathes of Londoners who do neither. And while the Standard has so far chosen to ignore the alleged financial holes in Johnson’s transport plans – his estimation that it would cost £8m a year to reintroduce conductors on all buses is said to be £100m out – the national press, with less of an axe to grind against Livingstone, will not.

In a sense, then, this election is not simply a matter of Livingstone v Johnson; May 1st will act as the culmination of the Standard’s eight-year war against Livingstone. A defeat for Johnson will not just demonstrate that the capital remains unconvinced by his sudden transformation into a politician of gravitas. It will also signal that the Standard’s agenda is not an accurate reflection of the mood of the city it purports to represent. Small wonder, then, that the paper’s ire will be ever more intently focused on the mayor as the election date draws near. For in truth, the result means as much to the standing of the Standard as it does to either candidate.

Linkage

2008-03-20T08:43:00.001-07:00

For the benefit of all you avid readers of this here blog who don't spend every waking hour googling my name again and again in the hope of uncovering a new titbit of my writing which I've haven't put on here (hello Dave!), here's some links to some other stuff I've written recently. Go team.

Political music isn't dead, it's just different - The Guardian
Los Campesinos!, Dartz and Sky Larkin - bands balancing uni with fame - The Times
The Meek shall inherit the earth - Some fancy uni project
Driven to death: how prison life treats women - similar

Go forth in love and peace. Amen.

Fucked Up - Year of the Pig

2008-03-06T01:50:00.000-08:00

Occasionally, just occasionally, a record floats past you as you plough your sorry way through the overflowing shit-trench of mindblowing musical mediocrity, desperately searching for that oft-promised yet perpetually elusive pearl. A record that is so unexpectedly fantastic, so ridiculously unhinged, so fucking ambitious and exciting, that in an instant you remember yet again why it is you spend fifteen minutes every morning trying to find the appropriate soundtrack to put your socks on to.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to tell you that that record has arrived.

Year of the Pig is, without doubt, a masterpiece. I never thought I’d find myself describing an 18 minute (18 MINUTE?!) prog-hardcore (PROG-HARDCORE?! I don’t even like simple ‘hardcore’ until it gets to era of the ‘post’ prefix) single as such, but there’s truly no other word for it. It starts like a behemoth waking from a century of slumber, uncoiling and stretching and flexing, all Led Zep descending chords and organ trails. The first half is a duet between gentle guest vocalist Jennifer Castle and the brutal throat-stripping bark of lead singer Pink Eyes. He grates his head with a piece of chipboard at gigs apparently. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The verses repeat and build and build and repeat until about 8 minutes in, when the track explodes into a meteor storm of sheet metal guitar and ear-twatting drums. Two minutes later and you’re flat on your back wondering how the hell that just happened.

And then…out of nowhere comes a motorik beat that sounds like it’s ascended from the bar-room of hell itself, and suddenly we’ve been transported to a nightmarish/bloody incredible vision of the future where the reanimated corpse of Dimebag Darrell plays Neu! cover versions in the style of the Stooges. I don’t remember much of the next six minutes, as it basically turns me into a giant goosebump every time, but I do know that as it ends all I want to do is go straight back to the start and sit through the whole epic journey again.

And that’s the only problem with Year of The Pig: it tends to make whatever you listen to afterwards a type of aural sorbet, existing only to cleanse the palette of your ears in preparation for the next fucked up course of Fucked Up. But what the hell, this type of thing doesn’t come around that often. Why put up a fight?

Asobi Seksu - ULU - 15/02/08

2008-02-21T12:48:00.000-08:00

It can't be easy being a slow burning success. Just as you can't face playing that damn album through ever again, everyone else finally 'gets it' and you're stuck in the touring loop for yet another six months, playing the same bloody songs over and over to people who could have heard them the first time if they'd only listened.

Nearly two years after the release of Citrus, there's a sense tonight that Asobi Seksu will be glad to see the back of it. This is their biggest UK headlining show to date, but singer Yuki Chikudate is quick to let the ULU crowd know that it will be their last predominantly made up of material from their glorious breakthrough album.

They follow a good but somewhat static set by electrogaze pioneer Ulrich Schnauss - the sight of a man at a laptop nodding his head is never going to intrigue, regardless of the quality of the music or the projected visuals behind him, and even if he is occassionally joined by a VERY SERIOUS young man singing about Jesus.

And Asobi, too, get off to a slow start. Versions of 'New Years' and 'Pink Cloud Tracing Paper' are hindered by a dreadful sound that alternates between tinny transistor radio fuzz and booming but guitarless lower end that only accentuates the previously hidden vocal weaknesses of guitarist James Hanna's backing parts. Dreamy shoegaze pop has never been about dominating vocal lines, and from these first few tracks it is all too clear why.

But, once the soundman has pulled his finger out, it soon becomes obvious how Asobi Seksu have reached the borderline of popularity, however long it took them to get there. 'Thursday''s gorgeous melancholia sends a shiver of nostalgic longing through the crowd, matched only by 'Lions and Tigers'' beautifully fuzzed waves of warm noise. A suitably hazy cover of Phil Spector's 'And Then He Kissed Me' follows, all distorted shimmer and sugar-sweet melody. It's a delight. Chikudate is an alluring presence throughout, iridescent behind her keyboard, her slight frame and artfully swept fringe belying a passion and commitment hitherto unsuspected.

There is a noticeable lack of new material, a slightly odd omission considering their obvious desire to move on from past, but only now truly appreciated, glories. But it's a minor complaint. Asobi Seksu may be getting bored of themselves, but they'll have to bear with the rest of us a little longer. It's not time to let go yet.

Les Savy Fav / Future of the Left / Los Campesinos – Astoria, London - 10/02/08

2008-02-20T01:05:00.000-08:00

The thought that perhaps the NME tag attached to tonight's sterling line up is a sign of the magazine's re-emergence from the tar pit of 'Killers frontman finds lizard in hotel room' desperation is soon dismissed – the large posters of Tom from the Enemy and ads for hair care products liberally scattering the walls see to that.

Gareth Campesinos! is not convinced either. 'Nice to see the DJ thought Les Savy Fav fans would appreciate Hard-Fi and Coldplay in between sets,' he mutters, as the band launch into a beefed up version of Death to Los Campesinos! On record, Los Campesinos can sometimes seem a little thin, a little frail – a dangerous game to play when you walk the precarious tightrope of tweepop; one false move and you end up more 'I'm a little teapot' than 'If You're Feeling Sinister'. Live, however, they are a different, more heavyweight prospect, and Gareth's Morrissey-esque presence – eyes raised to the ceiling, one arm wrapping the mic lead around the other – lends tracks like And We Exhale and Roll Our Eyes in Unison an unexpectedly epic quality.

Fellow Cardiff compatriots Future of the Left don't do tightropes. Or, if they do, they're made of Albini-approved sheet metal. Coming on like a cataclysmic collision between Shellac's bitter and twisted face-grating treble and late-80's Fall space invader keyboard, FOTL's set sends a seismic wave through the Astoria, and not only because it's so unbelievably loud. New single Manchasm and The Lord Hates a Coward spatter aural kerosene across the venue, until a truly apocalyptic version of Small Bones Small Bodies finally lights the match that sends the whole set up in flames. In this context, the closing comment of 'It's a real honour, us playing with Les Savy Fav…for them' from bassist Kelson Mathias seems less caustic than, frankly, accurate.

But, of course, this is Les Savy Fav we're talking about, aka The Greatest Live Band, like, Ever. Thankfully, the prospect of NME reaching for their coat-tails ten years after everybody else does not seem to have dampened their eccentric genius, and from the moment Tim Harrington bounds out in a Phantom of the Opera mask and the band clatter into What Would Wolves Do? all fears of a diluted populism are allayed. We are blessed with just the four costume changes tonight – a be-winged angel a particular highlight – but as the 'hits' flash by (The Sweat Descends, We'll Make a Lover of You, Reprobate's Resume) and Harrington does his customary 'wipe my belly all over the audience' thing, the recollection of just how damn special this band are is difficult to ignore.

It must be said that some of the newer material does sag a little, perhaps not quite reaching their previous heights. But, as they climax the set with a raging take on Debaser that utterly eclipses the original, this twinge of dissent is all but eradicated - the overwhelming feeling that remains is one of relief and joy that they are still here, still uncompromisingly brilliant, still untainted by this sudden mainstream appreciation.

Foals - Antidotes

2008-02-18T10:03:00.001-08:00

If the Enemy are at the back of class, twanging the girls' bras and congratulating each other on how working class they are, honest, then Foals are down the front, hands thrust towards the heavens, sneering through their fringes at the less-enlightened ranks behind them. Foals think they have the answer, and woe betide anyone who may not appreciate just how damn clever it is.

Self-diagnosed intellectualism is distasteful at the best of times, but for an indie band it's near-fatal. Even for one who, like Foals, are pretty good. And herein lays the problem. You get the impression that, to Yannis and co, being described as a 'pretty good indie band' is as repugnant as a state school education. Unfortunately, that's precisely what they are.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Parts of this album are truly terrific – the cataclysmic bottle-up-and-explode build up halfway through Two Steps, Twice, the knife-edge staccato riff of Heavy Water dropping out and making way for solitary bursts of brass, Olympic Airways' gentle harmonic shimmer demonstrating that melody isn't always their secondary consideration.

The difficulty for Foals is that, from the way their interviews set them up as some kind of revolutionary musical force, striking a blow for long forgotten innovation, Antidotes isn't enough. The much-vaunted Afrobeat influence turns out to be a few Antibalas' trumpeters tagged on the end of a handful of tracks, adding little, and certainly not playing anything resembling Fela Kuti et al. You get the impression that they're there just to provide the band with the opportunity to say in interviews that they know what Afrobeat is.

And there are times when the ceaseless hi-hat 16ths become so oppressively monotonous that you long for something, anything, to break it all up and prevent the inevitable return to yet another bout of 'boom-tish-boom-tish'. It is instructive that the best moments of the album arrive when Foals abandon their 4/4 straitjacket and let their songs breathe and develop naturally, without immediately lapsing back into the easy option of breakneck off-beat cymbals. These moments show that they do have the ability to pull off the inventive musicality they constantly proclaim their own. The question is now more about bravery, about going to the places they find uncomfortable. That alone will put Foals in the elevated position they so clearly cherish.

I'm Not There

2008-01-06T03:43:00.000-08:00

It was around about the point where Heath Ledger’s post-motorcycle crash beard ‘n’ shaded shithead ‘Dylan’ started ranting on about the futility of protest and, apropos of nothing, women’s inherent poetic weakness that the middle-aged couple sitting behind me decided to walk out. A small smattering of others followed their lead throughout the rest of Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There. Afterwards, in the foyer, I overheard at least three people describe it as ‘the worst film I have ever seen’.

To a certain extent, they were right. I’m Not There is irritating, over-long, pretentious, confusing and elitist. But it is also funny, brilliant, thought-provoking, ambitious and, occasionally, genuinely exhilarating. It certainly does not sit cosily next to Walk The Line in a ‘Heartbeat’ approved vidi-identity parade of ‘Your Favourite Memories of Yesteryear’. Good. The reason why Dylan continues to engage and fascinate, the reason why this cinema is full of almost as many 16-year-olds as it is 55-year-olds, is precisely because he is impossible to wrap up in a mop-topped reunion ‘all the hits’ tour package, and to attempt to do so in cinematic form would be almost as insulting to his genius as the suit-and-briefcase nod-a-long fests his soul sucking arena gigs have become.

So we get, famously, six different actors playing six different ‘Dylans’, including – yes! – a woman and a black kid. Some are terrific (Blanchett, Ledger), some competent but superfluous (Bale), and some bloody awful (Gere). The idea is a good one, though hardly as revolutionary as it has been portrayed in some quarters, and anyone with more than a cursory knowledge of Dylan’s discography should be able to recognise which era is which, even without the help of the soundtrack.

The narrative, if there is such a thing, skips around from decade to decade, much as Dylan did himself in the first volume of his autobiography, Chronicles, and is interspersed with collaged news reels and footage echoing the context within which his records were made. Ben Whishaw’s ‘Arthur Rimbaud’ Dylan, cut-and-pasting quotes and lyrics at off-screen interrogators, is the hook on which the surrounding melee hangs, and lends the film its only semblance of sequential structure.

Interestingly, Haynes makes no attempt to distinguish between the fact and the mythology that surrounds Dylan, so we get the motorcycle crash, we get Pete Seeger and his axe, we get the proto-hobo box-carring his way across Americana. And why not – these now-cherished myths are just as much a part of what ‘Bob Dylan’ has become in cultural terms as the plain reality of Robert Zimmerman from Duluth, Minnesota. In the soon-to-become clichéd-but-damn-it-why-not-one-more-time Tony Wilson phrase: "If it's a choice between the truth and the legend, print the legend".

As Haynes has admitted himself, in order to convey the sheer shock and confusion that Dylan wrought in parts of his life, he had to “render the past by not simply replicating it… You play some kids today the recordings of, say, the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan went electric, and they'll say, 'Well, what's so revolutionary about that? It just sounds like rock'n'roll music'.” This approach does not always work – the Billy the Kid pantomime scenes are almost painful in their over-stretching for figurative meaning – but it is to Haynes’ credit that it is in these attempts to “transcend” the documented history that the film reaches its highest peaks.

The scene at Newport is truly spine-tingling. Firing machine guns at the audience possibly rings too hard on the ATTENTION! THIS IS A METAPHOR bell, but the shift in the film’s volume and intensity when the band finally do get around to playing the music really does succeed in channelling the wave of frenzied bewilderment that must have swept over the audience at that Newport gig when it turned out that Dylan really didn’t want to work on Maggie’s Farm no more. And the nightmare hallucinations of the journalist whose persistent pressing turns him into the ‘Mr Jones’ of 'Ballad of a Thin Man' certainly manages to demonstrate the fear and loathing that Dylan at times both instigated and suffered. The message seems to be that something was indeed happening here, but that even Dylan himself wasn’t always entirely sure what it was.

For a film about Bob Dylan to produce that self-same reaction in parts of its audience fifty years later is nothing but evidence that Haynes’ approach is on the right path. I’m Not There is not a perfect film. Like Dylan himself, it sometimes reaches too far and misses. But isn’t that the whole point? For when it, and he, hits, it is truly something to behold, and treasure.

Clocks - All I Can

2007-12-05T02:46:00.000-08:00

Clocks are a facsimile of a facsimile of a facsimile. I’m not sure whether they’re aware of this and, if they are, whether they care. They would probably take being described as The View minus all sharp edges as a great compliment. And no, I didn’t think The View had any sharp edges at all either, but you will after listening to All I Can.

Clocks are also, in all likelihood, going to be massive. Only for about the length of one advert break in whatever replaces Popworld, true, but massive nonetheless. This is classic ‘indie’ music-by-boardroom-executive-committee territory, and the only image that every oh-so-calculated chord change and harmonised chorus conjures up is one of a greasy fat man in an ill-fitting suit ripping £5 notes out of the hands of stupefied six-year-olds with sugar-glazed eyes.

Holy Fuck - Amersham Arms 9/11/07

2007-12-04T12:56:00.001-08:00

Holy Fuck evidently aren’t concerned with doing things the easy way. Not content with ensuring the near-impossibility of accredited radio play, they’ve signed to Vice Records in the States, that bastion of all that is smug and neon-clad. They probably think wheelchairs are just too ironic, dude. Not scoring too highly on the pre-conception meter then.

But then what is the point of preconceptions if not to be utterly blown away by reality? For it turns out that Holy Fuck are not just deadly serious about their music, their performance, their name even – not a shred of knowing affectation is on display tonight – they might just be one of the most vital bands in existence today.

If this is the age of Neu-Kraut, and it looks like it might be, then Holy Fuck are surely leading the way in constructing the 21st century autobahn on which lesser bandwagons will inevitably ride roughshod. The overpowering live rhythm section lays an exquisite foundation of Neu!-style motorik beat and bass, allowing lead Fucks Graham Walsh and Brian Borcherdt the space to build and loop layer after layer of keyboard and sequencer squall. The vocals are more wisp and trail than anything resembling singing, delayed and fading and floating over the regimented chaos below.

They open with The Pulse, a monstrous blast of Germanic repetition that sets even the jaded scene-it-all Amersham Arms crowd on edge. There is a ferocious intensity about this band on stage, and yet their frowned concentration is counterbalanced by simultaneous involuntary dancing. This is electronic music, yes, but it feels like real live, human music, and it is. Holy Fuck only ever improvise around their songs on stage, there is no backing track grid hindering expression here, and they are all the better for it.

Storming versions of Frenchy’s and Royal Gregory follow, transforming the floor into a living and breeding mass of movement and spilt drinks, until the climax of the night is reached in spectacular fashion with the rising strings of the Final Fantasy-sampling Lovely Allen. A break-down and build-up that Godspeed would be proud of, a violin line of such tenderness that only mid-90s Spiritualised could match and an emotional punch that Sigor Ros can only dream of these days; then they’re off, unplugging and packing up their own equipment as they go. Holy Fuck – that was good. And not a neon keffiyeh in sight.

The Nightjars - Towards Light

2007-12-04T05:15:00.000-08:00

OK, The Nightjars…I'm afraid I must 'fess up and admit I lost their CD barely minutes after I received it. I know, professional. So this review is based solely on the four tracks on their myspace, which as luck would have it also appear on Towards Light, their debut 7-track EP. I'll have to give them the benefit of the doubt about the other three – you surely can't fit that much filler on a 7 track CD anyway, can you?

So here we are then, aping the A+R hordes and judging a band on Mr Murdoch's compressed-to-hell output. Nice banner, by the way lads. You've definitely got the 'we're moody and from Manchester' thing down pat, although I'm not quite sure how a badly burned Preston from the Ordinary Boys got in on the side…

Good lot of influences too, although as always the danger of setting the 'compare us!' bar way too high is ever present. Note to self: when a band proclaim to be 'influenced by Sonic Youth' they invariably mean 'we heard Teen Age Riot once and didn't mind it too much, actually'.

Lead track You Set Me Reeling sets off with a sprightly La's-esque chiming arpeggio and rolls along nicely, the chorus shifting the song up a gear or two before the interweaving guitars return and bring it to a close. It's nice. But it's nice in the 'yes, I'll have a Rich Tea, that would be lovely. But are you sure there's no Ginger Nuts left, though?' kind of way. The vocals don't help – there's something very popular-kid-at-school-discovers-indie-five-years-after-everyone-else about them, and you just know if you could hear the lyrics more clearly, the cringing would be involuntary. In fact, on MDMA, you can hear them – "I'm in love with this city/My girlfriend's so pretty, pretty". Yeah, and I bet she's the Netball captain as well.

No Kicks is the highlight, a droning, gothic Chameleons-tinged brute of a song that demonstrates the band's potential if they keep a tight leash on the singer and let the guitarists take the brunt of the work. In fact, it almost makes me wish I hadn't lost the CD. Almost.
6/10

Slow Club - Me and You

2007-12-04T03:56:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I've started doing some proper reviews. Oh, the humanity.

Slow Club should be AWFUL. Irritatingly good-looking pair of teenagers play skiffle-flecked tweepop with water-filled bottles and a chair filling in for drums, all wrapped up in the ever-dreaded 'kooky' lyrics…gah, it makes you want to leap into a cauldron of treacle to wash away the cloying saccharinity that immediately sticks to your clothes just looking at the front cover.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Me and You is actually bloody brilliant. The press release pushes for White Stripes comparisons – woah, the girl plays drums! – but that does Slow Club a disservice. Yes, there's hints of rockabilly here and washboard bass there, but this is not a song that looks longingly over its shoulder at the 1950s solely for fear of turning round and facing the front of today.

The lyrics are more Neutral Milk Hotel surreal than Jack White's 'I wish I was a baby' schtick. And the music refuses to sit still for a moment, it hops around the song's 101 different parts with barely concealed joy. Then they stick a grown-up school choir in at the end. A whole gig of this might well reraise the punchability quotient, but in small doses they're more than let off.

Fame - Ricky Gervais at Hammersmith Apollo

2007-09-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

The eternal artistic conflict between popularity and credibility is one that has fascinated and frightened Ricky Gervais ever since it became clear that The Office was no longer a slow-burning cult hit but an all-pervading comedic monstrosity. Indeed, the entire premise of Extras was to put on public display the battle that every struggling writer or performer must endure in order to present their work in its original, undiluted form, as well as Gervais’ condemnation of those who succumb to the imposed populist edits and re-writes that he, presumably, managed to avoid. Our assumed knowledge that he is well aware of the dangers of flirting with mediocrity in the hope of a quick fumble with mass acclaim is why he continues to get away with constant references to the countless awards won and the millions of DVDs sold. We know that he knows that that isn’t the point. Or we did.

The problem that Gervais faces now, as he performs his new stand up show, Fame, to packed and unfailingly ecstatic audiences, is that he no longer has to worry about compromising anything for the sake of success. He has reached a level similar to that of a Rolling Stones-U2-Oasis-style one man band hyper-industry, in that whatever he writes, performs or releases will sell in vast quantities, regardless of its quality. While his bank balance and mantelpiece probably aren’t complaining, for someone so preoccupied with the inevitable friction between credible creativity and popular success the fact that his brand of ‘undiluted’ and ‘close to the edge’ observational humour has now become the very definition of ‘popular success’ must cause difficulties. Once ‘the edge’ has become the centre ground, its appeal – the danger of falling off – vanishes.

And so it proves with Fame. The brilliance of The Office lay in its acute observation and portrayal of the everyday awkwardness surrounding sexual, racial and disability issues, accompanied with the wince-inducing self-recognition of behaviour and attitudes we’d rather leave untouched and ignored, not brought out into the light and scrupulously analysed on national television. The jokes covering similar ground in Fame have no such ambition. They just feel tired and predictable, as if Gervais has thought that since joking about cancer and homosexuality is ‘his thing’, he’d better stick a few in the set to avoid disappointing an audience who know precisely what is coming but don’t care. It is the equivalent of the Stones creaking their way through ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ for the billionth time – the original point and thrill of it all has long gone, replaced by mere simulation, but as long the money keeps pouring in and the crowd get to relive their youth for a few hours, what does it matter?

Well, it doesn’t, as long as all parties are aware of the nature of the deal. But Gervais has based much of his success, and indeed this show itself, on his insistence that he is not the same as the archetypal ‘celebrity’, those who abandon all self-respect and artistic authenticity in favour of whoring themselves out to whoever and whatever waves the most cash. It’s sad, but after sitting through a ten-minute advert reel for ‘forthcoming Ricky Gervais productions’ and listening to utterly pointless anecdotes about Chris Tarrent and Sharon Osbourne, you can’t help but doubt him. Once that ‘I’m an arrogant bastard - not really!’ persona starts to crumble, and is replaced by nothing more than ‘buy my DVD, I’ll tell the cancer joke!’, it’s almost impossible to take any of his protestations to the contrary seriously.

There are still funny moments, especially when he moves away from his experiences of fame to more mundane observations of public service adverts or life in a bedsit. But even here ‘the edge’ is missing – how many people have told a joke about the mob attacking the paediatrician, thinking he was a paedophile, or global warming providing more opportunities for barbecues? This is old stuff, and is perhaps a result of Gervais’ lack of experience on the stand-up comedy toilet circuit, but it’s still pretty inexcusable for a comedian charging £35 a ticket.

It’s taken a few years, but there can be no doubt that jury is now officially out on Ricky Gervais. The Office, and to a certain extent Animals and Politics, are still untouchable and weigh heavily in his favour – The Office, in particular, being as near perfect as a sit-com can be. But the evidence for the prosecution is starting to mount up: Extras (sub-Curb Your Enthusiasm and nowhere near as clever as Gervais seems to think it is), the consistently unfunny appearances on Jonathon Ross, the piss-poor podcasts, doing ‘the dance’ at every given opportunity - and now Fame. If there ever was a time to be afraid of losing the battle for credibility, Ricky, it’s now.

REDCARSGOFASTER ARE FUCKING DEAD

2007-08-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

You do it to yourself.

In the end, it was an unlamented suicide; just another unmarked grave in the no mans land of could’ve-been contenders. A single cd and three seven-inch records comprised the wake. Like a shared but distant childhood memory of dutifully funeral bound second-cousins groping for some common ground on which to reminisce, redcars are destined to be but a fleeting thought for the few who heard or saw or, god forbid, bought a record. But a few is still some, and a fleeting thought still a thought. A million words have been wasted on a thousand bands only those who cared care to recall. A few more won’t hurt.

There’s a lot to be said for the practice of pointless creativity. Why else would anyone start a band? ‘Art for art’s sake’ may be a needlessly affected way of regurgitating that hoary old indie-rock cliché of ‘making music for ourselves and if anyone else likes it, it’s a bonus’, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. You start a band because its fun to make your own noise, to make something out of nothing just because you can. And then you discover it’s even more fun to inflict that noise on an unsuspecting public while gyrating your crotch in a petrified man’s face on a settee in Milton Keynes. Or while using a discarded office chair as a makeshift skateboard to rocket through a nonplussed crowd in a converted school hall in Bath.

The opinion of ‘anyone else’ generally ceases to matter when your bassist clambers offstage in Walsall, mid-song, and for some reason decides to block the entrance to the venue’s toilets, fighting off any brave soul who dare attempt to pass with the trusty sword of a Fender bass neck. It does tend to matter, it must be said, when you’re pinned up against a Manchester wall by a member of some god-awful troupe of Northern Monkeys™, put out, shall we say, by self-same bassist furiously flinging himself from a raised platform fifteen yards into their pile of the finest overpriced equipment hopelessly wasted major-label money can buy. That one was during the soul destroying A&R fest that is In the City. A religious holiday for opinions that, ultimately, don’t matter, that one.

If the good life is the discovery that it is the ‘moments’ that count, those ‘moments’ which suddenly appear, then dissolve, before you can really register that they were there at all, and yet somehow, in recollection, add up to so much more than the sum of their parts, then it is moments like these that will distinguish what I will label the ‘era of redcars’ in my own personal posterity. Or those times when, after hours locked in a rehearsal room fruitlessly scraping and scratching with fingers and thumbs a defiantly unyielding lump of solid musical granite, someone would come up with a chisel-like part that smashed it through the centre and brought it crashing down around our ears. Or else we gave up and played ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ for three quarters of an hour.

But, of course, it was not always thus. As soon as a modicum of success widens the world around a band so as to reach beyond and around that kernel of fun, the pointless but priceless expression of ‘creativity for the sake of it’ that everything else should always revolve around, then the risk of those twin party crashers, hope and expectation, racing in and destroying what you had, widens with it.

For, under the weight of hope and expectation, a good review is transformed from a source of welcome reassurance to one of introversive analysis, and the inevitable comparison with the last one that goes with it. A radio play leads no longer to the simple disbelieving pleasure it once provided, but instead to the tedious frustration of the wait for the next one. The self-perceived success of a gig begins to rest on the size and reaction of the crowd, rather than the performance itself. And it’s only after you’ve received the leg-up from ‘local’ to ‘hotly tipped’ that the realisation of just how many hundreds, if not thousands, of bands have already made the same journey hits you. Of a sudden you’re just another dot on a radar.

And so, for a while, we lost some of the fun. The music got better, the playing got better, the gigs got bigger. But so did the pressure. The troughs dug out by the things that didn’t quite happen, the acclaim that never quite arrived, the reviews that weren’t as fulsome as they might have been, started to undermine the peaks that being invited to, in essence, act like a bit of an idiot and make a lot of noise with your friends, in front of strangers who had freely chosen to come and watch you, had built. It was never total, those ‘moments’ described earlier still arrived thick and fast, but the pleasure was undeniably being hollowed out somewhat.

It’s a tough business.

It didn’t last long. Momentum is strange beast, and dissipates as quickly as it builds. You have your time under the glare of industry scrutiny, and luck, taste and trends do the rest. With hindsight, ‘it’, that bizarre and unpredictable process of push from below and, perhaps more importantly, pull from above that separates those who ‘make it’ from those who don’t, was never going to happen. We were too erratic, too aloof, too, to put it bluntly, idiotic. We released the wrong songs at the wrong time. We took too long to get good. We ripped Joy Division off too much, at precisely the same time as the entire indie-rock population of the world decided to do so as well. We also, as a rule, played terribly when the ‘important’ people were watching – so often, in fact, it almost became deliberate.

Did it matter? In the final analysis, not really.

Because it is not what an outsider might consider to be the triumphs of redcars’ fledgling ‘career’ which will stick with me when I look back on the past few years. As rewarding as hearing a song you concocted in a dilapidated Leicester rehearsal room that you’ve been using since you were twelve on the radio is, it doesn’t really compare to the downright hilarity of looking up from your guitar mid-gig to see your co-guitarist swinging frantically from a precariously attached lighting rig, as the utterly bemused audience dodge his flailing legs. Or the joyous beam on your brother’s face as a member of an ecstatic stage-invading crowd (in Chippenham, of all places) dismantles his drum kit and, raising the kick drum high above his head, threatens to smash it to splinters, before gently and politely placing it down on the floor. Or the time in Stockton, during what was possibly our single greatest performance, when Andy abandoned his bass and stood in the crowd, arms folded, declaring to all around him that ‘this band are shit’.

We weren’t.

Battles: Scala, 16 May 2007

2007-05-21T01:26:00.000-07:00

As the pulsating sub-bass loop that brings a stunning ‘Tonto’ to its conclusion reverberates around the Scala, steadily slowing and deepening and lulling the crowd into near silence, Battles’ Tyondai Braxton looks up briefly from his sequencer stack and rubs his hands in anticipation. One moment and one push of a laptop key later and the entire venue has erupted in joyous frenzy as ‘Atlas’’s booming stomp-rock introduction explodes out of the speakers. It’s the aural equivalent of pressing the nuclear button, and who could deny Braxton his anticipatory relish at the moment of detonation.

Battles are many things – technical virtuosos, guitar geek gods, math-rock pioneers – but instigators of mini riots and communal sing-alongs they are not. Especially when no one knows what the words are. But, somehow, this is the position in which they find themselves tonight. The beats may be polyrhythmic, the guitar and keyboard parts so complex that to even contemplate their construction brings a tension headache, the vocals a torrid collaboration between Alvin and the Chipmunks and the ghost of Alan Ball, but the result is simple. You have to move.

Opening with ‘Race: Out’, the closing track of new album Mirrored, the alternating guitar trills so fast it's impossible to see who is playing what, it is clear from the second John Stanier’s thunderous beat kicks in that this is not going to be your typically reverent and studious math-rock gig. Ian Williams is spasmodicly twitching and jerking stage left, as if trying to shake off an infestation of aphids from a Philip K Dick novel, one hand tapping on his guitar, the other beating out an irregular melody on his keyboard. Directly opposite, Braxton’s whole body is loose and bending and swaying as he effortlessly switches from laptop to keys to guitar to microphone, layering loop upon loop, building and dismantling each track seemingly as the will takes him.

But it is Stanier who is the star tonight. Hunched centre stage, an 8 foot ride cymbal towering above his head, it is he who epitomises that rare ability Battles possess to combine mind-boggling intricacy with the more rudimentary pleasures of an irresistible drum beat. Despite each limb seemingly disconnected and playing ostensibly unrelated rhythmic patterns – at one point during ‘Race: In’ I feared his brain would explode, such was the concentration etched on his face – the overall effect is not one of chin stroking reverence but rather a hiphop party beat played by a marching band in an air hangar. It is nothing short of HUGE. Add this to the impossibility of predicting what he will play next, but that whatever it is he does play dwarfs anything you hoped he might, and the result is a drummer who is more than a match for any jazz percussion master. Crucially, though, he remains capable of sacrificing his own talent for the good of the song, without losing any of the technical dexterity. No ten minute wankathons here then.

The performance is not without its flaws. Any band attempting such, for want of a better word, ‘progression’ in their music invariably teeter on the line between true innovation and self indulgence, and there are times when Battles drop off. Certainly, the rather aimless improvisational piece which concluded the encore was a needless and slightly disappointing end to a hitherto incredible performance. But when similar past experimentation has lead to such wonders as the supercharged versions of ‘Tras’ and ‘Leyendecker’ we witness tonight, it seems churlish to complain. Where the band can go from here it is difficult to predict; for now, it is more than enough to know that, like that towering cymbal, the bar has been irretrievably raised.

Great Men Are Allowed To Be Wrong

2007-04-20T06:22:00.000-07:00

“No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries…Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages. The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of the labor of one human being by another. This law should be made to apply for American Negroes. The payment should be in the form of a massive program by the government of special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a settlement in accordance with the accepted practice of common law.”

Martin Luther King, Why We Can’t Wait, 1964

The Martin Luther King who millions of Americans remember on the third Monday of every January wasn’t supposed to have written the above statement. And he wasn’t supposed to have proposed that in a city with “a 30% Negro population,…Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas." The Martin Luther King that appears in American primary schools is a kind, gentle Reverend, dreaming of nothing more than a colour-blind society that could forget its past and start again. He is not a strong and angry leader whose dedication to non-violence did not detract from his belief in affirmative action, racial quotas and financial recompense, and certainly not the man who was accused of plagiarising parts of his most famous speeches and may have had a number of extra-marital affairs.

There are certain people who popular modern history has transformed, for a number of reasons, into mythological figures. These select few are raised up to a level beyond the criticism of us remaining mere mortals, to such an extent that to even consider questioning any of their words, writings or actions is tantamount to blasphemy. Martin Luther King is one of those people. So is Winston Churchill. So is Nelson Mandela.

The problem with this secular beatification is that it is necessarily discriminatory in the selection of the words and actions which become part of the ‘chosen one’’s mythology, discarding all but that which neatly fits in to the required stainless caricature. Therefore Winston Churchill becomes the epitome of an imaginary ‘Bulldog Spirit’, the wondrous leader who sacrificed everything for his nation, leaving the Winston Churchill who chopped and changed his political allegiance nearly every election (generally dependent on which party was winning) and who ordered the army to indiscriminately fire on miners’ pickets during the 1926 General Strike left untouched in the dusty archives.

Therefore Nelson Mandela is reduced to a smiling, benevolent grandfather-figure, forced to escape the gropes of molesting Spice Girls and the blank stares of millionaire imbecile footballers, a living symbol of a hideously simplified and meaningless ‘melting pot’ theory. It is just not on to mention his pre-prison dedication to African liberation through sabotage and guerrilla warfare as leader of the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe, without which the non-violent wing of the anti-apartheid movement would not have had the space to grow, because it does not fit in with what the Western political establishment want him to be. And when, today, Mandela makes a statement that is not concurrent with his ‘approved’ image (such as when he suggested that racism was behind Bush and Blair’s undermining of the UN in the run up to the invasion of Iraq), the reaction is merely a patronising ignorance, accompanied perhaps by a suggestion that the man himself is threatening his own legacy by daring to differ from the Nelson Mandela saluted in the history books.

The same is true with Dr King. The political (and it must be said, white) establishment know where they are with the Dr King who called for his children to be judged “by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin”. They have rather more difficulty in incorporating the Dr King who claimed that the USA "had committed more war crimes than any nation in the world" and should “move toward a [political system of] Democratic Socialism” (at a time when socialism actually meant something) into the toothless, sanitised version celebrated every year. They want a fictional apolitical, non-threatening black pastor to wheel out occasionally in order to pat themselves on the back for ‘how far we’ve come’, not the reality of a highly politicised man of action who would undoubtedly be as critical of today’s America as he was of that in the 1950s and 60s.

The awareness of the misrepresentative deification of Dr King was underlined to me last week, when, during my habitual trail around random blogs, I discovered a quote from a public letter attributed to him along the lines of “when people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism”. It was used, as similar arguments often are by apologists for Israel, as a counter against criticism of the Israeli occupation and cultural genocide of Palestine and the Palestinians. The gist of the blogger’s argument seemed to be that, if Martin Luther King believed that anti-zionists are always just anti-semites, it must be so.

It struck me that, regardless of the validity or not of the actual argument, this line of reasoning was simply ridiculous. Why should Martin Luther King’s opinion on Zionism hold so much weight that it, on its own, is enough to defeat any other? Leaving aside the fact that arguing that all anti-zionists are anti-semites is a heinous insult to the hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who actively protest against the Israeli occupation, and effectively brands them with the same ‘self-hating Jew’ brush liberally applied by real anti-semites, by making the assumption that a quote from Dr King is beyond criticism, that it is above the rational analysis that any other viewpoint must undergo, the author of the blog is, possibly deliberately, falling into the same trap as those who have constructed the cuddly, saintly image of the Dr King remembered every January, stripping him of all his views and actions they find disagreeable or uncomfortable.

The pretence that a man can be beyond criticism leads not only to an inaccurate and effectively meaningless history, but in actuality destroys the very things that made him a candidate for greatness in the first place. The reason why people who do amazing things should be remembered and lauded is not because they are without flaws, but precisely because they do. A person who leads a life of tremendous courage, commitment and belief acts the way they do despite their imperfections, not because they do not have any. Therefore, it should make no difference to his reputation as a great leader and activist whether Martin Luther King ‘borrowed’ parts of other orators’ speeches or was partial to a spot of adultery. These parts of his life should not be wiped from history because they do not fit in with a falsly sterilised image, just as parts of his political philosophy which do not sit easily with his ‘non-threatening’ portrayal, such as the demand for direct financial compensation for the descendents of the enslaved, should not be erased because they make the white leaders who try to capitalise on his memory uncomfortable.

As it turns out, the ‘letter’ quoted by the blogger was a hoax. There are reports of King making a remark similar to that quoted in a small private meeting, but no public declarations of support for Israel exist. No matter. The point is, even if he did believe that all anti-zionists are just dressing their anti-semitism in new clothes, and to a certain extent he probably did (the plight of the Palestinians was hardly well known at that time), that belief, on its own, does not mean that it is true. It is not. It is an argument used to defend the indefensible by those who have no other.
To take everything King (or Churchill, or Mandela) said or did at uncritical face value, or to construct a talking-puppet image of the man, with nothing behind the eyes except that which is handpicked by the current political leadership for their own convenience, simply deprives him of the rigorous intellectual appraisal his life and work deserve, and of the true stature his achievements, accomplished despite the possession of normal human imperfections, merit. He was not a children’s cartoon character, and does not deserve to be treated as such. There is nothing wrong in saying that great men were not always right. On the contrary, it merely makes their greatness all the more remarkable.

LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

2007-04-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

Let’s face it; LCD Soundsystem’s eponymous debut album was a major disappointment. Granted, it was always going to be difficult to follow up the almost unsurpassable string of singles that launched the DFA-founder’s solo career but, even taking this into account, James Murphy’s first LP was inexcusably infused with a distinct feeling of ‘will this do?’. At no point did the album ever even attempt to scale the heights reached by the three-headed albatross around Murphy’s neck that ‘Losing My Edge’, ‘Beat Connection’ and ‘Yeah!’ had become, and the inevitable conclusion was that he should be content with having created and immediately perfected a mind-blowingly exhilarating brand of indie rock-flecked dance on his first three solo 12”s, and leave it at that.

So much for that theory. Despite, or perhaps because of, the low expectations surrounding the release of this follow-up, from the off Sound of Silver not only matches the brilliance of those early outings, but actually trumps them. Despite it being only April, I can categorically state that no-one will release a better album this year. And more than that, I defy anyone to show me three consecutive tracks on any album of any year that can match the utter magnificence of those which form the centrepiece of this LP. Hyperbole? Just listen.

Sound of Silver opens with a beat so similar to that which begins ‘Losing My Edge’ that it cannot be coincidence. With the benefit of the hindsight that comes with the end of the album, it is clear that it is in fact a knowing nod, a recognition of the weight of the past, yes, but one imbued with the knowledge that, at last, Murphy has thrown off that burden and pushed himself to an entirely different plane altogether. As ‘Get Innocuous!’ builds and the vocals kick in, it is plain that we are dealing with a very different creature to that of LCD Soundsystem. Somehow, Murphy has transformed his vocal style in something that can only be compared to Low-era Bowie, perhaps with a hint of David Byrne, and about as far away from the Mark E Smith-aping yelps of his debut as is possible. It lends the track a space-age quality that only enhances the clinical yet uncontrollably infectious backing and is without doubt is the key to ‘Get Innocuous!’’s inauguration in the pantheon of great album openers.

And that’s just for starters. While ‘Time To Get Away’ and lead single ‘North American Scum’ may retreat to the more familiar LCD sound, they still easily more than match anything he has previously released. The title track, on the other hand, is as near he has come to a straight up house record, albeit one based upon a refrain extolling the virtues of being nearer 40 than 18 and with someone intermittently playing the final piano crash from ‘A Day In A Life’ in the background. But, as impressive as these tracks are, it is the three in the centre that turn what is a very good album into one that should already be treated as a classic.

Put simply, ‘Someone Great’, ‘All My Friends’ and ‘Us Vs Them’ together equal twenty minutes of the finest music you will hear this, or any, year. Somehow combining the euphoria that is a feature of all the greatest dance tracks with an almost painful intensity and wistful regret, these songs are shockingly wonderful, reaching a level of emotional impact very rarely achieved by any pop artist, let alone one dealing primarily in self-aware electronics. Leaving aside the actual music for a moment, it seems scarcely credible that the same archly detached, irony-drenched James Murphy of ‘Losing My Edge’ is now not only writing lyrics like “I wish that we could talk about it/But there, that’s the problem” but singing them with such absolute conviction. Previously, you were never sure where you stood with Murphy – the constant knowingness of a man unable to escape from the depths of his record collection prevented any genuine emotional investment from the listener, for fear of not getting the joke. Not anymore. This is real.

And the music itself is just astounding. ‘Someone Great’ sounds like the first love song written by a machine who has just discovered what it is to have emotion; it is as if the song itself cannot believe that its robotic bass and metallic melody can be turned into something so much more than the sum of its parts. ‘All My Friends’ is even better. With its insistent Velvet Underground piano riff almost stumbling over itself and Joy Division bassline pulling it ever upwards, ‘All My Friends’ has been described elsewhere as the best song New Order never wrote. It is much more than that – even at their peak, New Order would have killed for a song like this. It is jubilant and nostalgic, intense and poignant, all at the same time; it is the euphoria of the first ecstatic rush and the tipping point where it all goes wrong; it is the triumph of love’s first conquest and the devastation of its demise; it is, in a word, magnificent.

By the time you get to ‘Us Vs Them’, the intensity is getting a little much, and it is with relief that you welcome this exquisite slab of disco-rock reminiscent of those with which Murphy made his name. Beginning with his repeated chant of ‘the time is now’ (we are back in Mark E Smith territory here), the track builds and builds until there are no more percussive instruments on the planet left to use, before deviously dropping out for four bars. On its return, there has been a gearshift and it has been transformed into the slickest slice of Fela Kuti-tinged punk-funk since Black Leotard Front released ‘Casual Friday’ (produced by, yes, you know who), while the vocals have returned to that Bowie/Byrne collaboration featured in ‘Get Innocuous!’, sweeping and soaring high above the dirt of the bass and chops of the guitars. If any one song sums up the progression LCD Soundsystem have made since their debut album, it is ‘Us Vs Them’ – while the first half is undoubtedly good, the second is utterly blistering.

It is very rare to see a band return to the form that built their reputation after it has dropped away. It is even rarer to see one effortlessly top even the greatest of their past glories after failing so miserably the first time. But that is what LCD Soundsystem have done, and it is a feat worthy of the highest praise. Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to hear this album. Buy it, borrow it, steal it, whatever; the most important thing is that you cherish it. Albums like this do not come along very often, and it would be a sin for anyone to miss out.

"Why David Dimbleby may well be the fourth horseman of the apocalypse" and other stories

2007-03-30T04:56:00.000-07:00

The Question Time audience is never the most discerning at the best of times. An uneasy alliance of self-appointed ‘pillars of the community’, embarrassingly smug students and ladies of a certain age with a Dimbleby-tinged burning in their loins, their contributions are rarely coherent, let alone rational. Whoops and frantic clapping often follow the panellists’ cheapest party point-scoring, while the occasional snippet of wisdom that does manage to emerge through the tide of banality is generally greeted by confused silence and wary stares.

Yesterday’s edition was no different in this respect to any other week's. The great and the good of Bath had dutifully turned out to bestow their habitually erroneous blessing/curse on the participants and all was as well. The minister, as ever, was booed like a pantomime wicked step-mother, the ex-bishop tolerated as an drunk elderly relative at Christmas, and Dimbleby’s intermittent quips lapped up. But then the question of whether the British government should apologise for its role in the slave trade was asked, and the mood turned.

‘Why should we turn into a nation of apologists?’ stormed the Tory panellist. ‘You can’t apologise to the dead – why can’t everyone just get over it!’ replied the audience, rapturously signalling their agreement. The honourable leader of UKIP expressed his disgust that the 200th anniversary of Parliament’s abolishment of legislation allowing the trade of slaves was somehow being turned into a thing of shame, rather than the ‘wondrous’ moment in our history that it truly was. An apology would be meaningless, a woman raged - it’s nothing to do with us, what is everyone’s problem? The one person on the panel who argued otherwise, suggesting that if descendents of the enslaved want an apology then it’s probably the least that the descendents of the slavers owe them, was shouted down by the baying crowd and henceforth ignored.

The overtly celebratory nature of this outright rejection of national responsibility was shocking, and not a little disgusting. It demonstrated a singular lack of recognition of the manner in which history is not only linked to today’s world but actually created it. Not one member of the audience seemed to realise that today’s division of world riches, evident not only on a global scale but even when looking at the varying levels of wealth in a city at the centre of the slave market like Bristol, is in large part contingent on the horrendous events of 200 years ago. For the crowd last night, and no doubt much of the country, history begins afresh every day. What happened yesterday is irrelevant - a particular event is by no means a culmination of preceding ones but a separate act, standing free of context and to be judged solely within its own narrow limits.

It is this dismissal of history which allows the government to consistently deny that their neo-colonial pre-emptive war is in any way responsible for anti-Western feeling, because it occurred after September 11th. For those who accept that the world began anew on that fateful day, anything that took place previously is a cumbersome irrelevance. The first Gulf War, the murderous Iraqi sanctions and accompanying bombings, the cultural genocide of the Palestinians, the invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrowal of the elected Iranian government in the 1970s to highlight just a few episodes…all are consigned to the dustbin of a by-gone age, as applicable today as a horse and carriage on the motorway.

It is this dismissal of history which allows the anti-immigration brigade to trumpet the glories of an empire that won its ill-gotten gains through a thoroughly fictitious position as the ‘mother nation’ while, in the same breath, viciously denounce anyone who might dare to believe the hype and attempt to share in the glory by moving to the ‘mother’s’ bosom. Immigration is the inevitable fruit of empire and may well be its only saving grace, but to the screaming tabloid or three lion-tattooed cretin the very concept that there might be a link is simply anathemous.

And, finally, it is this dismissal of history which perpetuates the pattern of violence begetting violence that has dominated human society since the emergence of such a thing. Until people begin to recognise that the world in which they live did not arrive fully formed, but is just another step in a line of development that stretches back to the beginning of time, reaction will follow reaction ceaselessly, destroying all in its wake. The blurring of the line between symptom and cause is nothing but a complicit washing of the hands that insists that today is bound by today alone, just as yesterday was bound only by itself. It is a deliberate cultural blindness that leads only to disaster, a disaster of which the idiocy and nastiness of a baying Question Time audience is but a weak reflection.

Kubichek! - Not Enough Night

2007-03-20T05:26:00.000-07:00

As much as this pains me, there really is no avoiding it - Kubichek sound a lot like Editors. Only the most obtuse (or deaf) could argue that much of the Newcastle band’s debut Not Enough Night does not draw upon the same ‘more is more’ hi-hat obsession and overpowering single-string guitar line template that characterises the 2005 winners of ‘Birmingham’s Most Singularly Dull Band’ award*. Thankfully, as Interpol have shown, this formula does not necessarily equal the mind numbing angular boredom of endlessly repeated non-sequiturs delivered by Disney’s version of Ian Curtis that constituted The Back Room, and so it proves with Kubichek.

The method may be well tried, but such application is not. Nearly every song on Not Enough Night features a chorus that I would not hesitate to call anthemic, had not that particular adjective been irretrievably devalued by incessant descriptive use in hyped up reviews of northern neanderthals in silk scarves. The fact remains, however, that while most bands of their ilk overplay their trump card, repeating relentlessly a generally meaningless hookline (as in ‘you don’t need this disease’), Kubichek hold back a little, to the extent that some of the songs could actually benefit from a repeated chorus at the end. Ultimately, though, it is a reticence that works in their favour, as it moves the album from one that could be, perhaps harshly, labelled ‘obvious’ to one that requires and enables repeated listening.

Lyrically too, Not Enough Night succeeds where most fail by delivering tales of provincial drudgery and crushed ambition without descending into hollow accounts of the joys of buying a bag of chips and beating up a taxi driver. ‘Home Town Strategies’, in particular, succinctly describes the frustrations of living amongst those who refuse to see further than the end of their street, while surely no-one who has experienced the torturous death throes of a long term relationship could fail to be moved by ‘Stutter’’s plaintive cry of ‘It doesn’t matter where we go tonight/It ends in disaster/I think we’ve gone full circle now’.

True, the album does get a little repetitive towards the end, and Kubichek will certainly have to widen their palette to avoid future releases falling into the pitfalls that Not Enough Night manages to evade, but as soon as a guitar line as undeniably infectious as that featured on ‘Outwards’ kicks in, all potential criticism is forgotten. There is a reason why so many bands submit to the tyranny of the hi-hat and it is this: when it works, it still provides some of the finest moments indie rock has to offer. Not Enough Night may not have the consistency to reach those heady heights throughout, but it comes pretty damn close.

*current holders - the Twang

Seeing through the green

2007-03-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

The chubby green giant has finally lain some cards on the table. After over a year of harassing huskies, extolling the virtues of wind turbines on bungalows and wearing recycled trainers, David Cameron has at last put his money where his carbon offset mouth is and announced a policy. Yes, having obviously worked out that political leadership does actually consist of more than a series of photo opportunities, Cameron yesterday proclaimed that a Conservative government would introduce VAT on airline fuel and set up an ‘green air miles’ system for travellers, where those flying further than an allotted distance would pay tax on each extra mile. The current system of one-size-fits-all air passenger duty would be scrapped.

So far, so good. Environmental groups have been campaigning for this kind of legislation for many years, arguing that the exemption of aviation fuel from VAT is an archaic hangover from World War Two that is now, with the aviation industry producing nearly 5% of total carbon emissions, indefensible. And the ‘pay as you fly’ system of tax is undoubtedly a fair one, allowing the average one holiday a year family the chance to jet off to the Maldives while penalising the globe-trotting businessman who can more than afford to pay a little extra.

But as ever with Cameron, when you peel back the PR-savvy ‘concerned of Notting Hill’ façade, all is not quite as it seems. As much as he would have us believe his party is a new breed of caring, sharing Tory, back in touch with the world after ten years of navel gazing, the unfortunate reality is that behind the photographs of troubled expressions in front of dilapidated council estates and support for gay adoption is the same old conservative policy backbone of tax cuts, top down traditional morality and business-first fiscality.

As Cameron himself says, "any green taxes we introduce will be offset by cutting taxes on families, or on business, one for one". In other words, he is using his green credentials as a cover for the very same time-honoured Tory policies that were roundly defeated at the last three elections. Tax cuts ‘on business’ will no doubt be centred on that great Middle England ogre of ‘red tape’, usually applied to any attempt by government or the EU to implement legislation protecting worker’s human rights or health and safety, while Cameron’s plans for ‘family friendly’ tax breaks have already been announced. It seems that to Cameron a true ‘family’ is only one that mirrors an Enid Blyton novel – mummy and daddy, married and happy and forever true, with little Tommy skipping wholesomely beneath their feet. Tough luck if you are stuck on benefits alone, through no fault of your own, in a disintegrating tower block flat with three children; thanks to your impertinence in not asking god to bless your holy union, you get nothing.

Presumably Cameron is taking this traditional pro-family stance to reassure the Tory core voters that in his drive to modernise, he hasn’t forgotten them. Of course, the paradox with the tax breaks for marriage policy is that people in gay marriages will be included within the lucky few, an unforeseen aspect that I severely doubt the blue-rinse brigade will be happy with. But there is a pattern emerging here. Despite the constant comparisons with Blair and the recognition that the Conservatives have to appear to be engaged with Britain as it is now rather than as it is in one of Norman Tebbit’s wet dreams, as soon as Cameron is forced to get down to the nitty-gritty of hard policy he all too easily reverts back to the failed post-Thatcher Tory consensus of Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith and Howard. His attitude to the EU – he intends to pull out of the mainstream centre right coalition to form a new far right EU sceptics group, which will include the climate change denying loony that is Czech President Vaclav Klaus – and the mess that was 2006’s John Redwood-led tax commission’s report are just two more examples.

The electorate, despite regular appearences to the contrary, are not stupid. They will eventually see past the green spotlight that Cameron is shining in their eyes to divert their attention away from what is a fundamentally traditionalist agenda. The environment does not, even in these eco-enlightened times, win elections. And, despite what the media tells us, politics is not just about presentation. Substance still matters, and substance is what will be Cameron’s downfall.

Race for the prize

2007-03-01T06:43:00.000-08:00

David Miliband is no fool. Despite the cawing chorus of pleading Blairites, desperate for him to stand, it was reported on Newsnight last night that Miliband would rather ‘have his fingernails pulled out’ than take on Gordon Brown in the forthcoming Labour leadership election.

This news will surely come as a huge disappointment to Messrs Clarke, Milburn and Byers, that trio of discredited ugly sisters, who were yesterday hopping from tv station to tv station, telling anyone who would listen that it was utterly preposterous to imply that the timing of the launch of their new website, ostensibly dedicated to debating future Labour policy, was linked in any way to Blair’s impending departure and the ensuing leadership contest.

Unfortunately, Byers could not help himself during his lunchtime appearance on The Daily Politics, letting slip his great hope that ‘there will be a serious contest for the leader and that means someone [standing against Brown] who is either in cabinet or has been in the cabinet recently’. Clarke, on the other hand, warned Brown that unless he ‘engaged with the issues’ raised on the website ‘it is more likely someone else will come in [to the contest]’.

Despite Clarke’s refusal to rule himself out of the running, all three of the would-be assassins know that they themselves could not defeat Brown in a head-to-head contest. They are damaged goods – Milburn was a disaster as head of Labour’s 2005 election campaign, lasting only a week before Brown took over responsibility, while Byers must be considered brave even to show his head over the parapet given the 2002 revelations of his penchant for lying to Parliament and subsequent embarrassing exit from Cabinet. And if anyone can bring themselves to even contemplate a giant election billboard poster decorated with Clarke’s repulsive jug-eared mug they are a more courageous man than I.

Which is why Miliband is under such pressure to stand. Good-looking, sharp and, at 41, the same age as Cameron, Miliband is the anti-Brownite’s dream ticket. He is, in the public’s eyes at least, untainted by the failures of the Blair administration and could easily be portrayed as a new broom, sweeping out the vestiges of a weary party, just as Cameron swept away the challenge of David Davis. He, not the antiquated Brown, is the man to take on the invigorated Tories in the new golden future of British politics.

Except, of course, it is not as simple as that. Despite only entering parliament in 2001, Miliband is no political novice. A leading member of the influential IPPR think tank during the 90s, Miliband soon became one of Blair’s closest advisors and was, at 31, appointed head of the Downing Street Policy Unit immediately after Labour’s 1997 victory, a success for which he was given much credit. His speedy election to parliament and subsequent Cabinet position as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs surprised no one.

He is, therefore, not a man to be pushed around by former heavyweights like Clarke and Milburn, regardless of their past acheivements. And Miliband knows two things. Firstly, Brown will win the post-Blair leadership election. The hundreds of Brownite Labour MPs who have been waiting for over ten years, with varying degrees of patience, for their man to get his chance will not let this opportunity pass them by. Secondly, Miliband knows that he has the one thing that Brown, Clarke and Milburn do not. Time.

If Miliband stays out of the leadership scramble and lets Brown win, he cannot lose. He will be assured of a prime seat in a Brown cabinet, with some tipping him for Chancellor. And he will know that, regardless of how Brown does against Cameron, his chance will soon come – if Brown loses the next election, he will be out on his ear anyway. If he wins, he is too old to realistically go on for more than one term. Either way, Miliband will be in pole position for the succession.

Clarke, Milburn and Byers, however, know that stopping Brown is their last chance. They will be more than aware that the not-so-underhand sniping and derogatory off-the-record briefings in which they have been indulging recently will rule them out of participation in any Brown government. Their desperation to find a viable challenger to Brown is therefore only matched by their all-consuming desire to cling onto the last remnants of their dissipating careers. Miliband is all they have got, and he knows it. He also knows that they need him a damn sight more than he needs them. Hence the ‘fingernails’ comment; for Miliband is no more likely to sacrifice his career for the sake of Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn than you or I. The moment when the penny finally drops will be one to behold.

The good lord doth provide

2007-02-23T04:54:00.000-08:00

In what must rank as both the funniest political story of the year so far and irrefutable proof that there is a god, it has today been revealed that the Electoral Commission will be taking legal action against everyone’s favourite BNP-with-middle-class-accents gang of ne’erdowells, the UK Independence Party.

Apparently the Party’s sugar daddy, a retired bookie called Alan Bown, ‘forgot’ to register himself on the Electoral Roll from December 2004 to January 2006. During this period he donated £360,000 to UKIP, pretty much single-handedly keeping the party afloat.

Unfortunately, Section 54 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 states that all individuals wishing to give money to political parties must be ’registered in an electoral register’. The Electoral Commission is seeking to reclaim all monies donated by Bown during the period that he was not registered, effectively bankrupting the party.

What makes this story even sweeter to all of us who are not psychotic racists is that all of the reclaimed money will go straight into the pocket of the Treasury, rather than back to the doner, and thus, according to UKIP’s madcap beliefs, into the hands of those dastardly bureaucrats in Brussels.

It gets better - Section 54 of the 2000 Act is intended, in the words of UKIP party chairman John Whittaker, to ‘prevent dodgy overseas money being given to UK political parties’. UKIP of course would be the last people to criticise any legislation that prevented those dirty foreigners having access to our sacred British political system and so can only plead for clemency, rather than rail against the Act itself.

In fact, the only way this story could be topped is by a future revelation that the reason Mr Bown was not registered on the Electoral Roll was that he was living abroad at the time. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility – it certainly seems strange that the main benefactor of a party standing at the 2005 General Election would fail to remember to register to vote in that election. And it is often the case that those who most fervently believe that Britain is being ‘overrun’ by slimy, money grabbing foreigners intent on destroying our precious village green ‘n’ afternoon tea culture are the very same people who spend half the year supping John Smiths and eating nothing but fry ups in an ‘Only Fools and Horses’ pub on the Costa del Sol.

Teaching an old ...Dead new tricks*

2007-02-22T06:51:00.000-08:00

When a band like ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead start saying things like 'I used to think that [playing live] was an end in and of itself, that it had its own rewards. I don't feel that way these days', you know all is not well. As one of the most ferocious live acts in existence, the band's reputation has been built upon their utterly committed bloodstrewn performances which, at their peak, leave the band, audience and equipment in a similar state of glorious destruction.

True, their last two records have been received with more of a shrug of the shoulders than the rapturous acclaim afforded the albums generally considered to be their masterpieces, Madonna and Source Tags & Codes. And true, for a band such as ...Trail of Dead, whose success has always stemmed from critical plaudits rather than sales, this brutal dismissal from the canon of cool must have hit harder than for most. But not so hard as to destroy the group's belief that a live show is more than a vehicle to sell records, that it is an art form 'in and of itself', surely? There are few enough bands who make that crucial distinction as it is, and to lose one of the best thanks to the lukewarm response of a handful of writers would be as near a tragedy as indie rock gets.

Thankfully, within seconds of their arrival on the Koko stage, all fears of an insipid Dead-by-numbers sham of a gig are assuaged. Either Conrad has cheered up a hell of a lot since that Pitchfork interview or he is a far more accomplished actor than I give him credit for. Entering to the faint strains of Worlds Apart's 'Ode To Isis', the band tear into brutal versions of 'It Was There That I Saw You' and 'Relative Ways', flinging themselves about the stage and pummelling the audience into rapt submission. It is a incredible start to a gig, and feels like a direct challenge to the doubters, of which I, and I suspect the Conrad quoted above, was one.

The set list reads like a greatest hits collection, with tracks from Madonna and Source Tags making up the bulk. They toy with the crowd by stretching and reshaping the introduction of 'Totally Natural', building it to a tulmutuous crescendo before breaking it down to nothing and then slamming into the opening verse, leaving a trail of open mouths and racing hearts in their wake. 'A Perfect Teenhood' is possibly even better, Jason climbing high onto the speakers to scream the final 'fuck you' refrain as Conrad rocks back and forth like the emotionally scarred teenager the song describes. The overall effect - the noise, the energy, the sheer belief in what they are doing - is mesmerising.

It must be noted that they play only one track from their last album, So Divided. Every band, and perhaps every artist of whatever persuasion, no matter how great, will eventually reach the tipping point in their 'career', the point where, in all likelihood, their best work is behind them. Only the blindest of fans would seriously argue that So Divided is comparable with Madonna or Source Tags. It isn't. And the band themselves would seem to testify to that by their choice of set list.

The key now is how to react to that recognition. Some bands split up. Some carry on but, in reality, give up, like the Conrad Keeley of the Pitchfork interview, becoming performing puppets, shadows of their former selves, robotically running through the motions. And some, like the Trail of Dead tonight, take the triumphs of their past and reinvent them, unafraid to take on their history and win, using the immediacy of the live experience to create new art from old forms. It was, truly, a joy to watch.

*sorry!

"Is that Joe Pasquale? In the garden? What could he possibly want?"

2007-02-21T03:21:00.000-08:00

The difference between the great and the good is undeniably apparent the moment Stewart Lee walks onto the small Phoenix stage and launches into his opening joke. Beginning with a rendition of an encounter with a born again Christian door-to-door evangelist and ending with a simple commentary on the rise and fall of the level of laughter in the room - somehow turning the reaction of people to his joke into the joke itself - the ease with which Lee uses what is basically just mumbled repetition and creates something that not only takes apart the concept of what 'a joke' is but does it while still being funny is truly remarkable.

There was nothing wrong per se with most of the preceding five acts; indeed, Alan Cochrane, using similar techniques to Lee with regard to getting outside the traditional performer/audience relationship, built up from a quiet, unassuming start to leave the stage with the crowd still working out how they got from a debate on with which hand one should hold a microphone to a man ejaculating over a plate of sushi while telling Bob Dylan to fuck off.

It was just that Lee, despite being a mainstay on the 'alternative' (shudder) circuit for nearly 20 years now and performing a set made up of only 4 jokes, all of which I had heard before, still had a freshness and intelligence that made the others seem somewhat trite and stale. One of the supports in particular, a woman whose name I have thankfully wiped from memory, seemed to have been transported from another century entirely, one where tired lesbian jokes and cliche-ridden one liners were considered risque rather than an embarrassment.

The key to Stewart Lee's comedic genius (and I do not use the word lightly) is that he credits his audience with some intelligence. Rather than waste his time patronising the crowd by leading them gently by the hand towards a punchline that is laid out for them, he builds and stretches a joke over five or ten minutes, allowing the audience to find the humour in it for themselves. His Ang Lee joke for example, surely one of the finest of any current comic, has its 'tooth hurty' punchline, if it can be classed as such a thing, slipped in at the end so subtly that you are not sure whether you actually heard it or not.

By exploiting the humour to be found in the gap between Stewart Lee the comedian and Stewart Lee the person and by recognising the processes through which comedy has traditionally arisen in order to subvert them, Lee has in effect stretched the boundaries of what a stand up comedian can do, creating a meta-comedy that has few equals. The fact that he has done it while publicly humiliating Joe Pasquale just makes it all the better.

David Cameron and the new aristocratic takeover

2007-02-17T02:32:00.000-08:00

In the midst of the 'David Cameron drugs furore' that never was last week, a frankly hilarious picture emerged of the members of a hitherto little known Oxford university dining society, the Bullingdon Club. Featuring both Cameron and every oh-so-ironic student's favourite Boris Johnson, the photograph of the 'class of 87' shows the group standing imperially on the steps of their college, coolly (or rather not so coolly in the case of that twat at the back in the glasses, who I can only assume was the token 'rebel' of the bunch) surveying the pristine lawn and dreaming spires in front of them.

There is an confidence in their posture and a icy assurance in their eyes that only comes from the knowledge of an irrefutable future, the guarantee of success that was achieved on their behalf before they were even born. And they were right. The papers were full of what became of the likely lads. The boys done good.

Of course, the news that public school plus Oxbridge equals hideous wealth and prosperity is nothing surprising. But to this observer at least, the discovery of what goes on beneath the cover of darkness under which high privilege shrouds its' proteges was something of a shock. Reality does not often supersede prejudice, but the revelation that the 'tradition' of the Bullingdon Club is to hire a room in a restaurant under a false name, smash seven shades of shit out of it and chuck wads of tenners at the owner before skipping away, all giggles and smiles, went far beyond my worst suspicions.

It wasn't the trashing of the room aspect that really got me, but the flinging of the money. It demonstrates that the creed of wealth taking precedence over every other consideration is one instilled in the aristocratic youth from adolescence, if not earlier. There is a sense of self-congratulatory righteousness inherent in the act of behaving as you will safe in the knowledge that no consequence is too damaging that it cannot be solved by a wave of a credit card or a shower of notes. It precipitates a feeling of deserving invincibility, a recognition of and pride in all the advantages and freedom that privilege provides, with not a trace of the guilt or self-doubt that one might assume would accompany the realisation that everything the rest of us spend our lives striving to achieve has not so much fallen into your lap but been gently placed there on a silver platter.

What it basically boils down to is that the upper class, for that is what they are, do not only not care that they were born with everything at their feet, they revel in it. The fact that money they have done nothing to earn gives them carte blanche to behave however they like is not a source of guilt or shame but one of pride and self-justification.

Perhaps this is nothing new. But it's spreading.

It may seem a rather bizarre leap from the youthful antics of the future poster boy of the blue rinse brigade to those of the new indie rock celebrity glitterati, and it is, but there is a valid comparision to be made. The behaviour of those bastions of the London celebindie establishment, those privately educated sons and daughters of aging rock stars, actors and whatever the hell Keith Allen is, the Peaches Geldolfs, the Lily Allens, The Horrors and the Jamie Ts, smacks of the same self-congratulatory valediction of the members of the Bullingdon Club.

Careering around London in vintage day-glo, inflicting their god awful djing, 'chav-lite' ramblings or, in the case of Jamie T, cringeworthy public school patois, upon a public who cannot do a thing about it, there is the same self-assured arrogance in their eyes as they stare out at us from the fashion magazines as there is in Cameron and Johnson's on the Oxford steps. Maybe it's the coke. Maybe it's the knowledge and a celebration of an unassailable future. Whatever. It's there.

Is there any difference between destroying a restaurant and contemptously throwing money at the owner and, like Lily Allen or Jamie T, brazenly mimicking and singing songs about a 'chav' lifestyle you have no experience of in an accent carefully constructed from episodes of Eastenders and overheard snippets on the Tube? I don't think so. Jarvis Cocker had it right - 'everybody hates a tourist/especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh'.

And these indie celebs do. Their money gives them the opportunity to pillage and mock lifestyles and cultures, and to live a life creating 'music' and partying that most of those people they parody can only dream of. But it's not real, there is none of the authenticity or commitment that is found in the music of people who make it despite the circumstances of their lives, not because of them. It is privilege, not talent, opening those doors, pure and simple, and they know it. They just don't care. Like the members of the Bullingdon Club, they deserve it.

Imran Ahmed wrote a much better article than I ever could about the takeover of indie rock by the yah-yah brigade. He's possibly even more angry about it than I am, which is nice to see.

First post

2007-02-17T01:29:00.000-08:00

I have finally decided to abandon spending my days shuffling paper for eight hours while furtively visiting the same five websites, over and over, in a ever decreasing cycle. I cannot spend my entire life metaphorically dining out on the belief that I have the ability to actually achieve something tangible and worthwhile, something that might have an impact, while all the time lulling myself into a state of inaction through the reassurence of a well developed theory entitled 'it'll just happen eventually'.

It probably won't.

So I am leaving the world of the post-university meander and attempting to find THE POINT. Quite what starting a blog has to do with THE POINT I am not sure, but at least it will let me write about 'stuff', a skill which I fear I have left out rotting with the leaves while I honed my admittedly killer general administration technique.

The 'stuff' will, I predict, centre around the holy triumvirate of politics, music and football. Maybe a bit of 'women/beer/motors/don'texpecthelponathursday' on the side too, for I am naturally but a slave to the 18-24 male demographic. Aren't we all.

Anyway, should anyone actually read this, please feel free to shout me down. The best bit about argument is the long climb down from vitriolic rant to considered opinion, and the complicit obsequiousness of the lone monitor and keyboard is not really conducive to that. I need correction as well as direction. Maybe you can't have one without the other.

Or maybe they just rhyme.

PS. The title of this blog is from a line in a TV On The Radio song. They're probably the most important band (if a band can be classed as important, which I think it can) out there at the moment. And more significantly, they are fucking awesome.