Brief Return

A portion of new stuff that has come into my office today and that I've played more than once which is a sign that it's worth more than if I only played it once. You must understand young man or indeed lady that:
a) I'm not a reviewer
b) I exist outside of time

Clinic - Walking With Thee
If I knew musical terminology and shit I could refer to the dynamics of this re: a, b and c with some authority but I do not and yet, while it may add up to nothing, it is sexually exciting. Like having. Fill in. Blanks. One rocks back and forth and yearns for a mask. If I had a rock band called for example the Whining Orphans, we would WEAR MASKS and hop about making monkey sounds.
Let me sum it up: I would like to perform Sexual Intercourse to this song. Would you?

Patto - Air Raid Shelter
I can't do the history for you but they were from the early 70s and have been forgotten except for a recent Mojo feaure apparently, which I missed. This, along with everything else I've heard from them, is unbelievably great and I can't understand why they aren't as well known as at least Jethro fucking Tull who sound nothing like them and were shit. Even the Groundhogs had hit albums and Patto share something with them, so I guess they must have been very unlucky or exceptionally ugly even for early 70s obscure UK blues-based rockers. On this song they sound disturbingly like Karate, my favourite contemporary band. Stripped down blues, with bizarre lyrics, and an extraordinary musical invention and interplay and skill we will never hear again. Stunning.

Greens Keepers - Low & Sweet
Why doesn't DJ Phlegm ever play this? This I would dance to in the chimpiest of ways. No idea of provenance because I am nothing if not remote from any scene. But it sounds like the niftiest old steel guitar bluegrass riff welded onto a dance track without tasting of strong cheddar. Pure joy - play it again.

Meanwhile Back in Communist Russia - No Cigar
Starts with vulnerable low-key spoken word female, like a weepy Linda Steelyard (Prolapse). Builds up with militaristic dynamics and keyboard swoops into instant cerebral hit.

Ivy - Only a Fool Would Say That
I read in a magazine many years ago the author Robert Sheckley saying how the Grateful Dead ran like a 'vein throughout his work.' Regardless of the Dead reference, I would lay claim for my personal spine being Steely Dan. No justification is necessary for the mockers, the unbelievers, those who have not ears, like lizards. So, I'm listening to all the mediocrities who covered Steely Dan on the soundtrack to the mental illness mocking, Jim mongoloid Carrey starring film Me Myself and Irene, which I haven't seen and am sure is a piece of trash. Whatever, it's refreshing to hear a new slant. Remind me to tell you about all the times Steely Dan have saved my life. OK, you can go.

Pure Joy Wins Out Again, But Mere 10% of 1986

This week, I am musically joyful. Plus, I am gainfully employed with all the nobility of labour and personal dignity that that that that allegedly implies. Furthermore, my body is highly sought after from various quarters. And yet, while this may be a self-revealing egotistical weblog of a distant kidney, that is none of your goddamn business.
The musically joyful part is as a result of discovering that Audiogalaxy can work on a Mac by downloading a little app called MacSatellite from here. From where? I can't remember, you work it out yourself, can you use a fucking search engine you cunt? Can you?!
Welcome to the illegitimate spleen of a weblog that insults you, the witless reader, and calls you the C-word to your pig ugly face. Like I wouldn't in real life... Oh yeah? Try me - call this number etc
I took the pills yesterday, but now it's Thursday, they wore off! Get me some more, I don't care how much they cost!! Okay, no more exclamation points. The Elaine Benes rules.
Carry on... Also, no more ellipses.
When I was working in an office, as opposed to the bouncy bouncy rubber room, reinventing the wheel several times a year, last year, I was on a PC and Audiogalaxy briefly all too briefly kept me mentally alert and erect due to the breadth of downloads it could provide. Search on the obscurest of band names and it would invariably turn up a match. (Except for Marathon by Breaking Circus which eludes me like a scarlet pimp.) So, back at home with my Mac, all this was gone and I have to rely on the other mainstay media for my music, of which more of below. Of.
Now with MacSatellite, I am free to type 'Meanwhile Back in Communist Russia' and I'm off again on some adventures. MacSatellite seems a bit temperamental but at least it isn't exploring my back end like the Audiogalaxy proprietary software has been revealed as doing. And finding out that I am a regular at www.spottygothchicks.com. (Also, MacSatellite remembers partially downloaded files.)
To divert: what is it with you guys, I mean yeah you guys, telling me what you had for fucking dinner tonight on your dumb weblogs like anyone gives a fuck. I am drinking a 2000 Chianti Il Tesoro, accompanied by a fat pack of Twiglets which are on a two-for-one deal at Iceland. 'Yummy' as you gimps would say. Hey man smell my finger, as George Clinton would say. Always insult your audience, as Jerry Sadowitz would say. Never explain, never apologise, as ****** would say. Who said that? Oh, and I am right now listening to Cluster's Zuckerzeit as I type because I find that instrumental music is more conducive to me sitting still rather than jerking about in my chair in a frenzy, which tends to slow down the writing.
But what I wanted to categorize, in a scientific study, for I am nothing if not categorical - unlike the Pope who is cataholical, which means he is addicted to cats, there's a joke in there somewhere but no time to find it - are the sources from which I have downloaded music since I lost my mp3 virginity in December 1998. I lost my real virginity in 1843. To Queen Victoria.
Actually, I once dreamed that I lost my virginity with, possibly to, Barbra Streisand in the back seat of a car in 1963. I wrote a lovely poem about it, too. It was a very vivid - unfortunately not lucid - dream, one of the all time greats. I expect Barbra Streisand was gorgeous back in 1963, although I had never up till that dream knowingly fancied her. It was a big American car of uncertain model - and i FUcKED BARBRA STREISANd IN the bacK OF it OK aah!!!

Estimated breakdown of mp3 sources, Dec 1998 - Jan 2002 (total population surveyed 60Gb):
Hotline 78%
Audiogalaxy inc. MacSatellite 6%
World Wide Web (legit) 6%
World Wide Web (illegit) 5.5%
Borrowed CDs 3.5%
Aimster 0.7%
Macster 0.3%
Napster 0%

Glut of Interstitials aka Dead Sigs 2

'Don't kid yourself! Your subconscious has been brainwashed for years. The reason you're obsessed with Rock 'n' Roll is because Satan wants you to be. Rock 'n' Roll is harmless you say? ...there is a war going on for your soul and Rock music is being used to keep you a prisoner!' Christian Equippers International

Read the news for information on how to get login information.

'The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races. The economics of this musical esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud.' George Steiner

Users named '???', 'Evaluation User', 'Unnamed' may be disconnected.

'Only my mother and the police call me Graham.' Suggs

'The de facto standard has become 24 hours, although this is a convention rather than a law, an arbitrary rule established by the lords of netiquette.'

'It’s now literally impossible to even say the word “rock” without some degree of at worst embarrassment or at best self-consciousness.' Nick Cain, Opprobrium magazine

Like the sound of a cat walking during a thunderstorm.

Rock music? '...sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons; and by means of its almost imbecilic reiterations and sly, lewd - in plain fact, dirty - lyrics, it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth. This rancid-smelling aphrodisiac I deplore.'
Frank Sinatra

Do you agree to not be some jerkoff and to try to be a normal human being?

'A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.' Jebediah Springfield

Glue has come a long way since the Romans boiled down mistletoe juice and spread it on twigs to catch small birds.

Stomach Gas

--Thinking you're the only person who knows Bjork's surname is Gudmundsdottir and that actually, you pronounce her name Bee-yerk
--Saying you like Pink Floyd but quickly adding 'but only when Syd was in them' (see also: Genesis)
--Having one jazz CD in your collection - Miles Davis' Kind of Blue
--Justifying liking Abba by referring to the poignant lyricism of their later work
--Thinking that the lyrics of Wonderwall really say something to you
--Being 50 and listening to Bob Dylan and NO ONE else
--Blaming the Beatles for inventing pop music
--Saying that not only wasn't Ringo Starr much of a drummer but he wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles - like you know what you're talking about and you just made it up
--Having one reggae CD in your collection - Bob Marley's Legend
--Claiming, in an offhand ad-libbing kind of way, that Charles Manson 'stole' Helter Skelter from the Beatles and saying you're stealing it back and then playing a really piss-poor version of it and imagining you're a shit-hot rock star - and having 20 million people believe you
--Pretending to be a friend of the band and going backstage and asking the singer what a particular song really means
--Being a management consultant called Brian from Preston and giving a Bryan Adams CD to my ex-girlfriend
--Doing the hand actions to YMCA at the office Christmas party
--Doing a karaoke version of Like a Virgin with three of your friends on backing vocals
--Being 60 years old and believing Elvis is still 'the King'
--Being a 6'4" Swedish backpacker and standing in front of me at every concert I go to
--Being so 'hip' you laugh at people who say 'concert' instead of 'gig'
--Being a popular newspaper journalist and referring to 'Jimmy Hendrix', 'Ian Drury' or 'Roger Daltry'
--Being an ageing newspaper journalist and still referring to 'Keith Richard'
--Being 40 years old and listening to a marvellous young rock band called the Stereophonics in your car
--Being an English 'Deadhead'
--Being a clueless twonk who attributes Horse With No Name to Neil Young in their mp3 collection (See also: Stuck in the Middle With You by Bob Dylan)
--Asking me 'what kind of music do you like?'
--Appearing on University Challenge and feeling obliged to appear embarrassed when you correctly answer a question about pop music
--Buying a Steps CD so you can tell people that you're into proper pop music actually
--Thinking you're the only person who knows Adam Ant's/ Boy George's/ Marilyn Manson's real name is Stuart Goddard/ George O'Dowd/ Brian Warner etc...
--Also, that Fatboy Slim bloke, he used to be in the Housemartins and his real name is Quentin, you know
--Thinking you're the only person who knows that Perfect Day/ Golden Brown/ Under the Bridge is 'really about heroin'
--These remain some common causes of stomach gas...

"Oh for Swift! such a subject his spleen to emit upon." Colonel Sibthorpe, 1842

Mostly Listening To

Today I listened to some music in between some more or less or less or more important things such as meeting an old friend, buying shoes, writing a best man's speech, getting commissioned to write some articles on subjects I know absolutely nothing about, getting a haircut, abusing my body and mind, and so forth. And here is my top ten of today:

Johnny Cash - I See a Darkness. Wavering voice versh of the Will Oldham 'number' featuring our Billy on backing vox. The song seems to be (without playing it again) an apology to friends for being, at times, a miserable cunt on the grounds of advanced sensitivity, some say neurasthenia. I am telling myself today that just because I read an article about 'social phobia' it doesn't mean that I have this condition, and that I am perfectly capable of getting up and making my best man's speech without wetting myself or fainting like my corset is too tight.

Hole - Violet. Or rather, a 'snatch' of it on that 'Trigger Happy' show which I pretend to hate, whereas I realised I just don't like it an awful lot. There is a difference and it's about time I grew up and recognised this. There is enough vileness in the world without affecting to despise a mildly diverting TV show I just don't happen to find very funny. Maybe it's a best man responsibility trip, but I feel that I am maturing at a rapid rate today. I want to see Courtney Love performing this song again, foot on speakers, with shredded dress and howling.

Alternative TV - Action Time Vision. I saw Billy Childish perform this at a gig last night and have had it in my head all day. Before I ever heard the ATV version, I heard it sung by my 16 year-old friend James with his band 'Abba' (his teenage punk idea of a subversive name). He sang it 'Action, time... and lemon!' which confused me until I realised many years later that he learned the song from ATV's version on the split album they did with the Here and Now Band. James had an older brother into free festivals and getting expelled from school, so was more advanced than those of us with younger sisters.

Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar. I hear it every morning on the radio as I lie in bed half-awake. Every time it starts I think, oh this is Joy Division from'Closer', but of course it isn't. Loud and on headphones it's an entirely different experience, as it should be, the tidal washes evened out.

Spoon - Everything Hits at Once. Played once in the background, and their 'Girls Can Tell' album may sound like so-much indie blah, yeah heard it all before, whatever that means. But on the basis of this opening track, the whole album was worth me playing it three times in a row this evening while thinking up apercus, and indeed, witticisms. Spoon are rife in my local used CD ranks these days, but this album is charming, intelligent, quirky, melodic and all that shite. I've told you before this isn't a reviews site! I would also like to announce that I intend to use a lot more gratuitous bad language as, lately, I have been swearing like a trooper for no good reason.

The Paybacks - Black Girl. From the 'Sympathetic Sounds' rock-n-roll-isn't-dead album. Excuse me for being a dumb fuck, but quite simply this fucking rocks. I'd like to write my 'Top 50 Most Exciting Tunes of All Time', in response to Q mag's dismal effort and because I am infected by listeria. If I could sing, I would like a voice like the fellow in the Paybacks, whoever he is. I'm trying to think who it sounds most like but I can't quite get there, obviously Faces-era Rod Stewart, but there's someone else I'm too drunk to remember.

Amon Duul II - Deutsch Nepal. I like them more and more every odd track I hear. How come they seem to be credited with about as many hipster points as ELP? This is as funny, funky, heavy and plain nuts as anything you could possibly want from your obscurist back catalogue. If I understood a word of what's going on, I'd guess that this song portrays a scenario in which Hitler is broadcasting from a mountaintop hideout in the Himalayas.

Half Man Half Biscuit - Lark Descending. From 2001's 'Editor's Recommendation' single. Features the line 'Trying to be Mansfield's very own Steve Malkmus' sung with the world-weariest of sneers, followed by a piping flourish from some recorders. As always, they are eminently quotable: 'I could have been like Lou Barlow, but I'm more like Ken Barlow.' But just by including this song in the list, I am revealing too much and one must maintain one's mystique like Joan Collins who is 84 and someone else, possibly Batman.

Mercury Rev - Dark is Rising. Now, I hate MTV as much as the next man but I happened to catch the video for this today and fuck my face if it didn't make me well up, in my eyes, with tears of regret and loathing and pity and terror. I love the Rev, as I feel qualified in calling them, as I have bought every last piece of crap they've released ever since 'Yerself is Steam', and could list countless times over the last decade when they have been the soundtrack to my life and all that clichéd fucking garbage.
J Donahue looked like he was made out of plastic.
Mercury Rev's Chasing a Bee is my favourite video even though I've only ever seen it once.
Videos are shit.

Teach-In - Ding-a-dong. I mentioned this in a previous post. I'm thinking, right now, that it could be the greatest pop song ever to have a stupid-as-shit lyric. Yeah, it may be an Abba pastiche, thus spiralling down into some Dantean inner circle of pop-qua-pop as in poop, as in this sucks up my anus, but fuck me if it isn't packed full of enough cheese in 2.25 Euro mins to give you a protein overdose and next thing you know you're rubbing yourself up against the furniture. The stupid fucking hello I don't speak a word of English shitness of the lyric - 'there will be no sorrow/ when you sing tomorrow/ and you walk along with your ding dang dong' etc - makes it even more appealing. 'When the world looks sunny/ everyone is funny/ when they sing a song that goes ding dang dong'. I thought the Dutch could speak English. At 1.10 the middle eight, or whatever you fucking musicologists call it, comes in and I get a rush of blood to the head and feel breathless with excitement and feel like weeping which is happening a lot lately and I get a big fat grin - the equivalent of premature ejaculation of the face - which is more than your fucking Hear'Say will ever achieve. To pick a pointless, random example.

Wintertime, 1881

I am the coldest son, tramping down Oxford Street, where the snow lies ten feet. Frost cats are on the prowl -- savaging curfew sneakers. In my one-horse open sleigh I outpace them all, broadcasting Melt-Banana to scatter the cats. Scratch Or Stitch! Sick Zip Everywhere! Screw, Loose! (Exclamations, editor's own.)

Currently, the hour we are inhabiting has run 21 minutes into time added on. In addition to being the coldest son, I am the fourth official and no one is permitted to challenge my authority to extend this, or any other, game. The board hangs from the back of the sleigh. Its warm red digits infuriate the frost cats who follow at a distance, jaws heavy with drool etc.

I am broadcasting from the future. 1881 is a close relation of 2002, hence the potential to establish a live radio link via the AHHA (that's the Alpha-Hydro Holocenic Arterial.) I am setting the scene for you. Being of the moment is what we live for. Bright Splat (Red Point, Black Dot), Skit Closed, Windy..., Moon Flavor.

My bones are protected by feathers. Jingling along Oxford Street in search of the gift, which is buried somewhere beneath the paving stones. Which are beneath the snow. Which is ten feet deep without a shovel. I am nothing if not unprepared, and my horse is nothing if not mechanical.

Feel Good Hit of the Summer

VictorGarce: this is a kule cd
WisdomGoof: starts off good drags a bit
VictorGarce: whats Vicodin? u know Marijuana Xstacy Vicodan and alcohol!!
WisdomGoof: dunno - maybe its a mix of viagra cod liveroil & anadin
VictorGarce: c-c-c-o-caine!!
WisdomGoof: i’ll just have a coffee thanks :-)
VictorGarce: Eminems always going about it
WisdomGoof: must be American
VictorGarce: I want some Vicodan! i want it now!!
WisdomGoof: ask the sanwich girl,, she’s septic
VictorGarce: septic =rank,i wont touch her sarnies man!
WisdomGoof: gotta go, another dumb meeting
VictorGarce: kakakacccocaine!
WisdomGoof: i wish

April 2001

Glut of Interstitials aka Dead Sigs, vol 1

Scoring pre-pack Nirvana from Budgens

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Fuel - Emergency Exit - Jacking Point

'These minstrels will soothe my jangled nerves...'

'Rock is the first in-context revealed religion incarnate ever.' Richard Meltzer

'Die Welt is Alles was der Fall ist.' Ludwig Wittgenstein

Page xii—-is the mountaineer not tedious only because people keep asking him why he climbs?

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as 'unsold and destroyed' to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this 'stripped book'.

'In the worst of times, music is a promise that things are meant to be better.' Robert Christgau

... the ritual time-wasting, the dull-eyed hostility...

Wubba wubba ggggg, huh?

Novels and short stories which mention The Fall

Gordon Legge, 'Question Number Ten' from "Near Neighbours"
Irvine Welsh, "Trainspotting", "The Acid House"
Alan Warner, "The Sopranos"
Martin Millar, "Milk Sulphate and Alby Starvation"
Paul Reekie, 'Submission' from "Children of Albion Rovers"
Barney Hoskyns, "Lonely Planet Boy"
Iain Banks, "The Crow Road"
Matt Thorne, "Eight Minutes Idle"
Michael Bracewell, "The Crypto-Amnesia Club"
Joseph Gallivan, "Oi, Ref!", "England All Over" (implicit not explicit)
Camden Joy & Colin B Morton, "Pan"

The Sound of Music

Memory is long and inaccurate and memories are pointlessly vivid and frustratingly evasive. There was a question on 'The Weakest Link' tonight about a song from 'The Sound of Music' (about which I always have to say 'I've never seen The Sound of Music', not that I'm proud of the fact, just that is is one of those films, you now those films, that everyone is assumed to have seen but I haven't and I doubt if I ever will, not liking Julie Andrews or musicals) named after an alpine flower. The answer immediately sprang to mind along with a memory from long long ago... (misty fade)
It's at my grandmother's house, one holiday period, my uncle is sitting to my right, my aunt to my right. He asked her a question, she sang Edelweiss as if carefree and unaware, but she was only doing it to blot him out and wind him up. He asked her again, louder and angrier, but she continued to ignore him and continued to sing Edelweiss. Not long after, they became the first couple I knew to get 'divorced'.
Vince Hill - who remembers Vince Hill?! - had a big hit with dreary old Edelweiss. I look it up and the book says it was in February 1967 and I may be old, but I'm not so old that it would have been in the charts when my Introduction to Marital Disharmony memory was happening.

I Just Can't Help Believing

How sweet to have a holiday song - makes me feel like I'm 16 again. There were several candidates while I was in Thailand last year but they were either too familiar (Let It Be, Hey Jude) to gain any extra resonance, or they were just downright tragic in the first place (a Westlife album I must have heard every day for two weeks). True to my secretive nature and my isolationist tendencies - something I am supposed to be working on, although not by writing a weblog that no one reads except me and even I don't read it once I've written it, but that's not the point and this is a very long sentence and I haven't even reached the end of the clause yet, if this diversion inside two dashes is, strictly speaking, a clause, as I've never studied grammar, and I'm aware this isn't funny and I've long since lost your attention - my holiday song isn't one I shared with anyone else, but one I heard on the plane home. Through headphones, while sitting on my own. And my holiday song, which is mine, is I Just Can't Help Believing by Elvis Presley.

The line that set me off was 'I just can't help believing when she slips her hand in my hand and it feels so small and helpless and my fingers fold around it like a glove.' The lack of sleep, vodka and the altitude may have played a part in my airborne emotionalism, too. But it's a great song by any standards with a big showbiz Vegas orchestral arrangement, Elvis going 'sing the song baby' to the girly chorus, a false ending and fuzz guitar. Also he sounds a bit out of breath and knackered on it, which he probably was, but it all adds to the emotional impact.

It feels important for me to have a favourite Elvis song after all this time. I'm not a fan by any means but it would be churlish to deny him his place in my history. Because the holiday romance I found myself having was, in the end, little more than a hand-holding episode. Indeed, that was the highlight, the rest of it being a drunken, grubby roll in the sand. So I permitted myself to believe that Elvis was talking to, or about, me. And in doing this, my so-called holiday romance took on an element of grandeur and allowed me to feel part of the human race. Or at least a temporary member of the human race who's sneaked in round the back and is helping himself to some drinks he hasn't paid for, all too aware that very soon he's going to be spotted by the authorities and kicked out.

Mary is strapping on a rubber penis. "Steely Dan III from Yokohama," she says, caressing the shaft.
"What happened to Steely Dan I?"
"He was torn in two by a bull dyke. She could cave in a lead pipe."
"And Steely Dan II?"
"Chewed to bits by a famished candiru in the Upper Baboonsasshole. And don't say 'wheeeeeeee!' this time."
- William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch

Top Ten Albums of 2001

I posted this to www.dooyoo.co.uk this morning - might as well reproduce it here for all my fans. Note - it is written in accordance with the dooyoo guidelines, which I usually ignore in favour of a provocative rant, except this time I decided to play it more or less straight.

1 Moldy Peaches - Moldy Peaches
Dismissed as a novelty by some who like their music po-faced and whiny, the New York duo's debut was a breath of individuality. The lyrics are hilarious, touching and frequently filthy, the music is raw, exuberant and singalong catchy.
Sample line: 'It's hard to be a garbage man when a sailor stole my glove.'

2 Aereogramme - A Story in White
Appreciated by few, the debut by this hairy Scottish trio stayed in my CD draw for most of October. Sad, quiet songs suddenly turn LOUD and MENTAL and feature some of the best guitar tones I've heard in years.

3 Life Without Buildings - Any Other City
My secret pop crush, Life Without Buildings have been criminally ignored in end of year polls so it's up to me, singlehandedly, to give them a mention! Singer Sue Tompkins splutters and propels evocative but elusive poetry over music that transcends mere 'indie' by being informed by a wide range of influences.

4 Mercury Rev - All is Dream
Initially undewhelming, but growing on me all the time, Mercury Rev have been at the top of the game for a decade now and anticipation was enormous for this album (in my house). Ambitious, sweeping, cinematic, and unique.

5 White Stripes - White Blood Cells
If there is room in your heart for music that, um, kicks ass, and does it with humour and intelligence, rather than with petulance and self-pity, then this is a long sentence that I don't know how to end, and the White Stripes are great fun and will survive the hype.

6 Papa M - Whatever, Mortal
I never got to hear Leonard Cohen's long-awaited 2001 album so this will have to act in its place as it evokes Len's 70s albums (this is a good thing, by the way). At a radical tangent from their previous post-rock instrumental behaviour, Papa M does indeed sing real songs.

7 Hamell On Trial - Choochtown
The title track is as funny and complex as a series of the Sopranos. Ed Hamell is a foul-mouthed folk-rocker with a punk attitude and plenty to say for himself. It can be quite irritating at times, he doesn't sound like a happy man.

8 Radiohead - Amnesiac
This album won me over after years of dismissing them as po-faced and whiny. A soundtrack to disaffection and yearning, it just about summed up my summer, thanks for asking.

9 The Fall - Are You Are Missing Winner
It's The Fall, and that for me is enough reason for a top ten placing. Triumphs in spite of - or perhaps because of - an almost contemptuous attitude towards presentation, production and professionalism.

10 Aphex Twin - druqKs
The first four tracks are called Jynweythek Ylow, Vordhosbn, Kladfvgbung Micshk, and Omgyjya Switch 7. Some of it is like classical piano, some of it make your ears hurt, there are 2CDs and it goes on forever. He frightens me but I sink into it.

Other 2001 albums I could have mentioned: Mull Historical Society, Low, The Silver Mt. Zion, Strokes, Tortoise, Stephen Malkmus, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Von Bondies, Ben Folds, Jim O'Rourke, Detroit Cobras, Mark Kozelek, Mogwai...

Ultraglide in Black

Picking out tomatoes in the supermarket on a Tuesday afternoon in January when the rest of the world is hard at work, I'm grooving away to Do You See My Love by the Dirtbombs (see below) and feeling like I'm carefree. Possessed, even, of a sleek and casual sexual allure. I boogie on down to frozen foods and want to shake a hip, do a scissor kick to I'm Qualified. Settle for a barely discernable wiggle in my walk and a mildly insane mouthing of the chorus. By the time I get to the checkout, I'm having a good-time party in my mind but now I'm home the guests have gone and there's a lot of clearing up to do. I'm qualified for reality, for some semblance of a 'real life', but it keeps passing me by, like the years which will total 50 in the blink of an eye if I carry on feeling this carefree. 'If time was money I would be a millionaire,' as the Dirtbombs sing in another song.

NB: all 'grooving away' and suchlike is performed courtesy of a 6Gb Creative DAP mp3 player, so kick me in the ass and call me Stanley.

Lou Reed singing the English-French Dictionary

Most days I would go to the library, it was a massive and splendid edifice, bleak and imposing in its granite majesty. That's what I told myself, I didn't know if I believed it. I found it very difficult to know what I believed from one moment to the next. It ran according to various unfathomable elements.
There was one particular book in there, one that I discovered by accident and kept going back to. It was a signed copy of Lou Reed singing the English-French Dictionary, all 679 pages of it, bound in red leather, and dated 1969. I thought it might be worth a few bob, so one day I sliced out the computer coded identification tag and walked out with it in my rucksack.
I didn't normally carry a rucksack into the library and I was so paranoid about the possibility of getting caught that I took the rucksack into the library every day for three weeks before I dared walk out with the book in it.
I didn't think of it as stealing. After all, it seemed no one had bothered to take the book out in the 23 years it had been in the library.

This is how it worked: when you opened it and stared at an entry for long enough you'd hear Lou's voice (intoning rather than singing) the words... it didn't matter what they were. There wasn't much in the way of tunes, I grant you, but I thought of the dedication that had gone into the creation of this vast work and I hugged it to my chest.

Sometimes it seemed to me that I was utterly deluded and that it was the most ridiculous thing in the world to think that I possessed a copy of Lou Reed singing the English-French Dictionary, all 929 pages of it, bound in red leather. But there it was: every morning I woke up, and there it was every night I went to sleep. (And who else owned a copy? I had never seen any mention of it in any Lou Reed or Velvet Underground discographies. And where did he get the time to record such an enormous project?)

Rêve: (Pendant le sommeil) dream: Le rêve et la realité, dream and reality... C'etait un beau rêve, it was a lovely dream; son rêve de jeunesse, his youthful dream; la femme de ses rêves, the woman of his dreams; une creature de rêve, a dream creature...

I held on to it for a few years, and at one stage tried to record the whole thing onto tape. But something always seemed to go wrong: the batteries would run out, the tape would break, I would be interrupted by a telephone call, or roadworks would start up outside and drown out the dictionary. Once, I got 45 minutes down as I sat there turning the pages and staring at each entry in turn to make it come alive, but someone borrowed the tape and recorded something else over the top.

One day, I took it to an antiquarian bookseller to have it valued. The proprietor was a white-haired lady with a walking-stick and I doubted if she would realise exactly what it was I had here. Perhaps I should have taken it to a second-hand record shop. But she showed an interest in what I'd brought her; she examined the pages with a magnifying glass and cocked her ear to the paper. Her wrinkled face was filled with enchantment as she listened; I was too far away to hear.
'It's quite extraordinary,' she said.
'Isn't it?'
'However did you come about it?'
'I... er... there was a sale of unwanted stock in my local library and I managed to pick it up for 50p. Of course, then I didn't know what it was. I was just learning French and I thought it might come in useful.'
'Well, you certainly found yourself a rarity. And a remarkable bargain for 50p.'
'Yes, yes. How much do you think this would fetch now?'
'Well, with the film just out, it might be the ideal time to sell such an item.'
'The film?'
'Yes, you know, Chaplin.'
'What's that got to do with it?'
'You mean to tell me you don't realise who this is, reciting this book?'
'Of course I know who it is. It's Lou Reed.'
'Lou who?'
'Lou Reed.'
'Who's she?'
'He's a singer, an American. He was in the Velvet Underground.'
'No no, that was a French novel. I don't know what's wrong with your ears, but this dictionary is by Charlie Chaplin.'
'What? It's by Lou Reed, haven't you listened to it? Find the entry for 'heroin'. You've only got to listen to the way he says that.'
'I don't like the way you're talking. Heroin and Americans! I'll give you £200 cash, here and now, for this book. Take it or leave it.'

Entendre quelque chose en rêve, to hear something in a dream; disparaître ou s'evanouir comme un rêve, to vanish or fade like a dream.

© 1993

Three Hot Wings

I used to have a rule regarding buskers, that I would only ever give them money if they played a Neil Young song. (The only exception was his tedious minor hit Four Strong Winds since he didn't write it.) Well, never happened. I may have broken my own rule by refusing to reward a Rockin in the Free World I vaguely remember hearing at Leicester Square. But it's my rule, I can do what I like.
All this is leading up to hearing Heart of Gold in a KFC this week (second mention in two consecutive entries but they do occur nine years apart.) There is no moral, no original recipe epiphany, it was merely a pleasant moment. I put a few pence in the Children in Need collection box on the counter.
It was followed by Madonna's Borderline, pretty much the only Madonna record I'll admit to liking - elitist snob that I am. It was a hit when I first came to London and I used to sing it to myself when I took the tube, renaming the song 'Northern Line' 'cause that's the line I used. Which doesn't *mean* anything either.
Next up on Kentucky Fried Radio was Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke. Once I had a day off school, sick or skiving, and lay in bed with Capital Radio on. They played Sir Duke ten times throughout the day. Even then it drove me slightly mad but being a child, I enjoyed a jaunty old gay old tune, Queen and Abba too. I can forgive Seventies pop anything, although I don't want to listen to it anymore.
Having said that, for reasons best left unexplored, I downloaded Teach-In's underrated Eurovision-winning hit Ding-a-Dong today. It was featured on a TV programme - Banzai? - and I fancied a trip down the lane of memories where, if I'm not careful, I could end up spending the rest of my sorry life.

When You Put Leonard Cohen On
"Thursday 30 July 1992: Went to see my financial adviser at Liverpool St, talked about pensions and insurance and shit like that which makes me feel grown-up and sensible, and as though I should have ambitions and plans in my life. Afterwards, sat in KFC looking at places to rent in Loot. Feel it's time to move out of the flat. Don't want to, but if the others are, maybe it's time for me to move on, too. Perhaps we could all look together? A change is as good as a rest, whatever that means.
Didn't get back till 10pm. No one else is in. Put on the Modern Lovers ('Tonight I'm all alone in my room, I'll go insane, if you won't sleep with me... ') - ha ha.
Eventually, Jeremy (not his real name) returns, literally staggeringly drunk. He took his shirt off and started singing and chucking things around in the TV room. I heard Kathy (not her real name) get back soon after and begged Jeremy to behave himself. She sat down with us for a minute and looked uneasy. I made it clear to her that *I* wasn't drunk. She couldn't care less, and says we can finish the bottle of wine she brought back from the restaurant she's just returned from (who with, who with?)
Then allofasudden she gets up and rushes off into the night, leaving her bedroom door open and the light on. What the hell is she up to? She's been in the flat a week and I don't know what to make of her at all. I don't think she'll stay much longer, and I can't blame her if she doesn't. It's a terrible place, and we're terrible people.
Jeremy staggers off up the road in search of the falafel stall and to see if he can find her.
Strange feeling of tenderness, a feeling that I don't want her to come to any harm. She looks as if she could shatter into many pieces. Who was she out with? None of my goddamn business.
She gets back very late. I see her in the kitchen as I'm getting a glass of water. She has a haunted look, as though it's been a traumatic night. Play Leonard Cohen and lie on my bed in a state of inarticulate distress wondering what, if anything, will happen between us. I am determined that something should happen between us - all the symptoms are present and correct."

Downloading When You Put Leonard Cohen On by Melys made me think about looking up that old diary entry. Kathy heard me playing Len late that night and mentioned it the next day (she wasn't a fan, of course). I don't know if it helped to bring us closer together, but we did and stayed together for years.

"How will I know if it's me that as hurt you?
You don't like to touch me, you don't like to talk
Can't make it right if you won't let me near you
Afraid of your silence, 3am morning walks
And I know there is something wrong
Cause you put Leonard Cohen on" (Melys)

A previous flatmate was a major fan of Leonard Cohen. He was a sensitive singer-songwriter himself and got to record a couple of CDs. He suffered occasional panic attacks and used music to bring himself out. One Sunday night the whole house was treated to Dance Me To The End Of Love at top volume on repeat play for about half an hour. No one fancied knocking on his door and asking him to turn it down. I guess the key line for him was 'Dance me through the panic til I’m gathered safely in.'

My key Leonard Cohen moment was a griefstricken broken heart walk round Hampstead Heath with a C90 in the Walkman. It was the middle of June and the skies opened. Sheltering under a tree, dripping wet, 'Songs for the New Ceremony' on one side, 'Songs of Love and Hate' on the other, revelling in my misery like a pig in shit. Oh but I was so much younger then, I'm older than that now.
No really, I am.