You were right when you said "all we are is dust in the wind"

Two months since my last post! Shocking.

There are few things more upsetting for a music fan than the demise of their favourite band. So it was for me with Urusei Yatsura in 2001, although a little over a year and a half previously, I'd already experienced something similar with Pavement. (Lo-fi-ologists will doubtless scream my ignorance at the fact that the Yatsura were blatant copyists of Stephen Malkmus' Stockton anglophiles, and although i always knew who was ripping off who, I can't really explain why i fell further in love with the Glaswegian 4-piece. Timing, i guess.)

I can still remember the joy of discovering that Stephen Malkmus' debut solo album (initially to be entitled Swedish Reggae, til he realised that wasn't especially funny) was on its way. It was 2001 and i was already thoroughly bored of my first year of university. It seems like Pavement-lite now, but Malkmus' first effort was one of a series of records that saved my summer that year. Here's the bizarre choice for a first single:



Since then, Malkmus seems to have grown into his 'slacker' reputation far more naturally than he ever did with his old band, and his work has become increasingly complex. It's still great, just less immediately fun than he used to be. And fair enough - he's earned the right. It just moves me less.

So recently, i belatedly decided to check on his old bandmate Scott 'Spiral Stairs' Kannberg's new band The Preston School Of Industry. I always liked Spiral's Pavement songs, from the blatant Fall-theft of Two States and Hit The Plane Down to the scuzzy heartfelt pop of Date w/Ikea and Kennel District. In retrospect it seems odd that i didn't get round to checking out Preston School a helluva lot earlier. In any case, I'm glad i did. There's something about his mid-life country-pop guise that's rather becoming. Even if his voice isn't the most distinctive, there's something lovely about his second album Monsoon that almost seems more Malkmus than Malkmus at times. Most excitingly, he finally sounds comfortable. There's not a lot to this song below, and in a way that's the most perfect thing about it:




Anyway. I've not touched on Steve West's Marble Valley, but this'll do for post-Pavement projects for now. More up-to-date references next time, honest. I'm just getting down what i've been thinking about for now.

***

I was supposed to use this blog to write about football as well as records (and, er, other things), and so far this has been brushed to one side a little.

This is probably an appropriate time, then, to declare my undying love for manager David Moyes and the entire Everton side - especially the following individuals: Tim Cahill, Phil Neville, Phil Jagielka, Mikel Arteta, Stephen Pienaar, Joleon Lescott, Marouane Fellaini, Tim Howard... actually, i was right the first time. The ENTIRE side. More coherent musings to follow after this week's terrifying-on-paper semi-final with Manchester United. Come on, boys.

***

I'm listening to Radio 1 and once again I'm appalled to discover how little of its content I enjoy. Aside from Talking Heads and Van Halen it's been shocking. I'm not sure exactly when my tastes and that of Radio 1's 7-10pm slot diverged, but they seem to have done so quite drastically. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Although, thinking about it, if that means I'm of a different demographic to one that might appreciate the horrible bletherings of the terminally-self-impressed Zane Lowe, then fair enough. Easy target, schmeasy target.

The light never shone down on you

It's happened again. For the second straight 45, everyone's favourite mod-punk-indepop northern soul enthusiasts Comet Gain have released a 7" where the a-side is totally and utterly trumped by the b-side. Just as the sub-disco skronk of last year's Love Without Lies (Twee As Fuck) couldn't compete with the lesser-known loveliness of Books Of California, their latest effort Herbert Hunke Part I (Germs Of Youth) revels in lazy Velvet Underground strums and retro-hipster drawl, without even approaching the heights of its far-sweeter flip No Spotlite On Sometimes. Comet Gain have always been obsessed with the beauty of failure, but they've never looked quite so much like their failure was more by design than accident. Anyway...

I first heard of Comet Gain when they earned a place on the NME's never-ever-mentioned C96 compilation (a theoretical homage to the famed cassette of ten years previously), which i didn't quite manage to order at the time. I could never find their releases, unfortunately; the entire band had quit, save for singer David Charlie Feck, and a new line-up had been assembled before one of their 7"s finally turned up in Liverpool in 1998. That was Jack Nance Hair, which i can still vividly and excitedly remember discovering in HMV's tiny vinyl section, along with a Freeboy/Mercedes split on Stupid Cat Records which had a hand-coloured sleeve. Jack Nance Hair became an instant mix tape classic for me, and if you've ever received a compilation tape made by my own fair hand, chances are you own this song. It's perfect. Still one of my favourite record purchases of all time.

It opens with soft acoustic chords and gentle drumming, energy, beauty and restraint combining to create an instant sense of nostalgia, as Rachel Evans intones a beautiful poem about the artist's dedication to his/her work, no matter how flawed it may be. The Eraserhead star's notorious barnet (from David Lynch's absurdist feature-length debut) becomes a metaphor for the honesty and inevitable folly of Comet Gain's music, and it's all capped with Feck's gentle croon declaring, "I don't know why I do the foolish things that I do," as though the universe may unravel if he doesn't figure it out. Beautiful. And there are few more perfect lines in pop than "young, free and single - like the crack in a 45". Ah, if only they still made singles as uniquely wonderful as this. Instead, i'll have to make do with the gorgeous slices of melancholic indiepop that they whack on the other side of the vinyl.

Anyway, here's some clips of Comet Gain. One from the original soulboy line-up in 1995 (that left to form Velocette):


...and last year's drum machine-led piece of noisepop:

The sound of confusion...

I'm reading Stevie Chick's predictably-stunning Sonic Youth biography Psychic Confusion. Fascinating stuff, but it's also making me feel oddly nostalgic for my teens, and my first real exposure to 'experimental' music of any description.

In May 1996, i was 13. Sucked in by the excitement of the then-prevalent Britpop era, I'd been reading the NME for about a year, and much of my musical education was informed by that self-same paper (which was still a reasonable term for it at the time - it was still a good four years before its descent into Top Man indie's answer to Hello!). That month, however, I chose to pick up a copy of Vox, largely inspired by the cover feature on my recent discovery, the Manic Street Preachers. The feature itself was fine enough, but as I browsed the record reviews, i stumbled across a tiny acknowledgement of a series of reissues for a band that I'd seen mentioned before. That band was Sonic Youth, and Vox hack Tommy Udo's evident passion for their 80s work piqued my curiosity.

It was all down to two titles really. Their first full album Confusion Is Sex had been repackaged with an EP darkly titled Kill Yr Idols. Given that i was beginning to question the validity of wanting to be a pop star, this synched up perfectly with my barely-formed thoughts, and although i would never have known to express it this way at the time, the sheer rhetorical nihilism of the statement was both dangerous and exciting. Then there was also Daydream Nation - a delightful juxtaposition of words that any teen can relate to, especially one whose head is being turned by the wonderful world of the electric guitar. I wanted these records. Of course, a 13 year old's budget rarely stretches beyond singles, and it was 1997 before I got to hear any of their revered racket. A chance encounter with one of my school's more notorious punk stoners resulted in me nervously asking if he had heard the Youth. Within a few days I had borrowed his copy of their breakthrough post-grunge scree-rock album Dirty, and my journey had begun.



Within a few moments of the opening bars, my mind was blown. By this stage, the most 'out-there' music i'd heard was Pavement's Brighten The Corners, and both Blur and Urusei Yatsura's attempts to sound like that band. I'd heard noise before - but not on this scale; not left wild and chaotic and totally untamed - the album's first track 100% opened with squalling feedback and atonal guitar skronk that rang throughtout the song (except for a few carefully chosen moments of haunting respite), while the melody and riffs were perversely supplied by the rhythm section. Compared to the louder sounds i was used to, like the metallic pop of Nirvana's Nevermind, this was debased and savage, and i instantly wanted more. The rest of the record didn't quite connect with me in the same way, disappointingly, or at least not for a few years. But it was enough for the time being. For Christmas that year i received a copy of Daydream Nation, and instantly fell in love. Again, I didn't get it all immediately - but it was still baffling and huge and viscious and beautiful and terrifying and endless and amazing. To this day i'm still learning more about that record and why i love it.

And so began my interest in noise. This falls by the wayside occasionally - as devastatingly enthralling as it can be, i still like my pop tunes. But when i'm in the mood, music that's experimental and challenging and engaging can be utterly inspirational. And my interest begins with this one band.

Here's some clips of synapse-melting sounds that i probably wouldn't have chanced upon without Sonic Youth:

Sun Ra


Glen Branca

I ripped your heart out from your chest and relaced it with a grenade blast

New Year's resolutions are a curious business. Mine, of course, is to update this blog more often. But it's always interesting, in January, to see just how many people strengthen their determination to get fit, and equally, how many of them realise they've wasted the cost of gym membership by February.

The gym is, of course, where good looks and whatever you have resembling dignity go out of the window. It's a wholly necessary evil - that metabolism don't work like it did when i was 16 - but it would be nice if we didn't have to look so pathetic. NO-ONE escapes this in the gym. It is no place for sexual aesthetes. Skintight clothing reveals bulging, wobbling flab in all its revolting glory, while gelatinous fat breasts bob up and down in perfect rhythmic time with the crosstrainer; ripples of flesh ebbing and flowing up and down the body. Insert your own 'and that's just the fellas'-style joke here (although it lamentably IS the ostensibly stronger sex to whom I refer here). I don't look at the girls. I can't. For one thing I have a long-term girlfriend, and for another, I'd be too embarrassed even if I did. The gym reduces me to a panting, crimson-faced heap of sweat - not the best look for the alpha male on the prowl, i shouldn't imagine. The gym robs us all of our cool, assuming we have any to begin with.

In fact, the only reason we go is so that, after hiding all signs that we do work out at all, we hope that we might eventually look ever-so-slightly better. And therefore cooler. So the fact that we have to wait innumerable aeons for any given machine, every January, only seems to prolong the agonies we put ourselves through in order to attain that distant goal. Fuel is then added to this fire with the knowledge that the ones causing this extra waiting time will have lost interest, patience or will power by February, thus inferring that our agony is trivial. I mean, Christ, I've not kept up my New Year's resolution very well, but at leat it's not fucking up anyone else's regular routine.

More self-important OTT rants about the gym to follow - until I at least start to look like Dolph Lundgren, at any rate.

***

My last post was all about how great new music is. Such a shame that I've followed this up with a week spent listening almost exclusively to the Gin Blossoms and Redd Kross. Ah well. I'll get out of the 90s one day.

Getting older makes it harder to remember...

Ok, so this hasn't quite gone to plan. New Year's Resolution! More frequent blogging! Starting now!

For the last few years I've felt increasingly like I don't get new music. I flatter myself that I'm an enthusiastic consumer of pop music, both underground and overground. In fact, I've always thought that I devour, rather than merely consume it. I suppose this is symptomatic of (or perhaps a contributory factor to) my ridiculously short attention span. The positive aspect of this is that I have a pretty decent record collection, if I do say so myself, and one of the most enjoyable things a guy can do, in my opinion, is research a band thoroughly - what they used to sound like, whether the members used to be in other bands and what they used to sound like, who their influences are and how much I'm gonna dig on them... great fun. Geeky, yeh, but what the hell.

So it came as a surprise to me a few years ago when I started to lose interest in contemporary stuff - there was just nothing exciting me. It was worrying. I mean, what do you do when your passion suddenly seems to hold no future for you? I suspect it kicked in with the arrival of what my friend Phil refers to as 'Top Man indie' - it was the first time music had made me feel too old. Without wanting to get all melodramatic, in your mid-20s that's a bizarre place to be.

Luckily, after a surge of xmas presents, vouchers and things, the end of 2008 helped me realise that there's still plenty of stuff out there that I love. It's not all over for me - thank fuck! Hooray for needless fretting! So with this in mind, I present my top records of 2008! Enjoy!

10. Hayman, Watkins, Trout & Lee - S/T
Imagine a record destined to make zero impact upon the public consciousness. This was surely it. Ex-Hefner frontman and current indie legend Darren Hayman teamed up with The Wave Pictures' David Tattersall to create a gorgeous piece of magical London bluegrass. But whatever your thoughts on the premise or its commercial viability, there were few records released this year that exuded such joy. Indiepop approaches to country music (and its various subgenres) have rarely scaled the heights of this album.

9. Times New Viking - Rip It Off
I'm fairly sure that, for a lot of people, TNV represent little more than an untamed, untalented and ultimately unlistenable indie rock trio. But from the first time i heard them (cruising Myspace for acts to watch at ATP) to the 3 times i got to see them in 2008, they've been sheer rock'n'roll excitement throughout. Yeh, it's sloppy and chaotic, and on record you have to search even harder for the bubblegum delight underneath the fuzz, but dammit, it's FUN! Like trying to catch early Pavement demos on a cheap long wave radio whilst pouring cherryade and sherbert into your mouth.

8. Mudhoney - The Lucky Ones
Earlier this year, John Robb reviewed this record for Plan B. Looking back on grunge, the Gold Blade ringmaster suggested that Mark Arm's garage rock veterans left the best and most important legacy. I'm not sure how far I agree with that statement, although I'd be pretty hard pushed to choose between Touch Me I'm Sick and Lounge Act if asked. In any case, this fine effort showed there's still bite behind their snappy bark; a sterling collection of hip-shakers and floor-stompers that added a delicious groove to their heady blues broth.

7. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
One of two artists what I managed to catch at this year's ATP and immediately write off. Note to self: when searching for party bands whilst horribly drunk in a badly-ventilated indoor festival, do not announce to all and sundry that an acoustic act is bad simply because they did not make you want to jump up and down. For Emma... is beautiful; constantly teetering on the edge of histrionic but somehow retaining its footing. Lush falsettos and subtle electronics only add to the sweetness on display.

6. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
If ever a hip-hop record had me sold from the concept alone, it was this album's sterling single Dr Carter, in which Wayne plays a consultant for rappers suffering from problems with their flow. It's brilliant, hilarious and addictive, not to mention big-headed. Although possibly not as big-headed as the self-aggrandising couplet of the year: "Take away the basketball, the football team / Now all we got is me to represent New Orleans" (from Tie My Hands). What, just you? Brilliant.

5. Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs
There was a lot of talk this year about Death Cab reinventing themselves, and when needlesly-long single I Will Possess Your Heart crashed into the 6music playlist, I couldn't help but feel like it may have been for the worse. Luckily, I needn't have worried. It's classic Death Cab really, and even the five minute Pink Floydian intro to the single makes perfect sense within the context of the full record's natural flow. If anything has changed, it's Ben Gibbard's new 'character study' approach to lyrics, which perfectly offset sunny collegiate indie-pop like No Sunlight; surely one of the best tracks to grace a DCFC record thus far.

4. Fleet Foxes - S/T
Sub Pop appears to have been on the hunt for a new Shins ever since New Slang's appearance on the Garden State soundtrack converted innumerable movie viewers into hardcore fans of literate, vaguely psychedelic, folk-tinged indiepop. Fleet Foxes are the latest pretenders to the Albequerque heroes' throne, and an album crammed with Beach Boys harmonies and 'baroque folk jams' can only encourage more listeners to jump on their heavily-crowded bandwagon. From rural American whimsy to pure sun-drenched pop, this is a record to be cherished; where each track drifts into the next with the gentle, natural glide of twigs in a stream.

3. Vivian Girls - S/T
Of all the hearts that Brooklyn's Vivian Girls have won, it's interesting that the resurgent C86/twee/indiepop/whatever scene seems to be claiming the trio as their own. This may be due to the reverb-heavy, borderline-shoegazey production of their album, or certain sonic similarities to the likes of the Shop Assistants. Either way, it does not take much probing to note that the girls are, to all intents and purposes, a pop-punk band along similar lines to Bratmobile, Onion Flavored Rings, Party Garbage or Cub, and this gloriously messy debut showcases every possible reason to love them in just over 20 minutes. What's not to devote oneself to utterly?

2. Deerhunter - Microcastle
Brandon Cox's Deerhunter are the aforementioned other band that I managed to cast aside in derision at ATP Vs Pitchfork. After months of reading about how amazing they supposedly are, I gave in and spent some vouchers on their latest opus. And good lord, it's magnificent. I'm quite, quite happy to withdraw any previous comments i may have made about this band. From its richly atmospheric production to its intricately-arranged, crack-level-addiction tunesmithery, Microcastle is an endlessly enjoyable record that leaves me breathless for more.

1. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
I love this band. It's been years since I've even come close to liking a contemporary band as much as I adore The Hold Steady. And this fourth effort only served to illustrate why. It's not so much a reinvention of their formula - Paul Westerberg and Bob Mould fighting over the mic amidst rippling Springsteen pianos and arena-sized choruses - as a refinement of it. Opening and closing with two of the finest songs of their career (Constructive Summer and Slapped Actress) doesn't detract from the stuff inbetween, as the band play around with new wave synths, stadium balladry and doom-laden psych-blues in what is surely their most complete album yet. It helps that Craig Finn is one of the finest lyricists in rock today, and the multi-faceted narrative he weaves throughout Stay Positive is utterly compelling. If they continue at this stunning rate of pace, lord only knows how immense their next record will be.

So there you go. My records of the year for 2008. New music's ace actually, isn't it?

If you're fucked, it's alright - it's Saturday night. And you are alive. And you are alright.

Sitting in my rom listening to Buffalo Tom and reading Everett True's fantastic interview with Comet Gain in Plan B. I love reading David Feck's drunkenly soulful musings on pop; both his own and his favourite records. There's something so charmingly idealistic about them; full of some hope and some despair, as Lance Hahn might have had it, and a beautiful sense of idealism about the lost, the damaged and the permanently forgotten. The combination of all of these things is akin to the most tranquil of alocohol-fuelled nostalgia - a general sense of acceptance that these things have passed and nonchalant contentment with the status quo, culminating reflection on how wonderful those things used to be.

And yet there's something about this that's desperately at odds with some of the music that I love. Comet Gain - from what i can perceive - is not just happy to be shambolic, but comfortable with being a relic of a time to which it didn't belong. It's as though they're carrying a torch for the ideals and sounds of their beloved punk; that they believe it died in New York with Sid Vicious in a tragic, but fitting paean to the transience of simple pop music that the movement was supposed to exemplify so perfectly. I cannot and will not believe that. The punk movement is still as alive and relevant today as it ever was.

Ok, I'm not going to offer an explanation as trite as Comet Gain, or any old punks for that matter, have 'just gotten old'. I don't believe age has any bearing on the quality of people's tunes so much as talent, self-belief or a general understanding of how much of your 'art' (for want of a better word) is actually any cop - so equally this should equate to people's understanding of music. Simply: age is not a concern. The only people who give a fuck about age are the naive scenesters and journalists obsessed with the new, the young and the beautiful. These will become jaded themselves with time and yearn for something they can enjoy like they used to. But this does probably not mean that they want to hear new bands that sound like the ones they loved in school - it either means they have lost their enthusiasm for the new, the methods of finding the new are beyond them, or they simply cannot hear the new any more.

This is all bullshit in any case. The new is, and always has been, a false concept in music. The sounds and rhythms have always existed somewhere. Fusing them together does not make new sounds; it juxtaposes old ones. What we mean when we talk about bands or fans getting old is that they have lost the ability to locate that spark of enlightenment that occurs whenever we hear an incredible band or song - the trick is to remember this much.

This brings us neatly back onto punk. There's always someone who wants to tell you that it's over, or they're over it. I say: FUCK OFF. Punk exists regardless of whether it excites or moves you. The UK movement may have quickly descended into idealess farce (and maybe it always was - maybe that was the point), but surely the mainstream was never the place for punk anyway? If the mainstream 'broke' punk, the DIY circuit fixed it. And it's these ideals and the efforts of the hard-working people in the underground who just want to put on fun, affordable and exciting shows for themselves and their friends. If this seems secular, cut-off or unambitious to you, you're missing the point. This scene does not care (and never has) for such outdated notions as fame or success - just fun through good music for people who want to hear it. I'm excluding poseurs and scenesters here, obviously - they're inevitable. But they're the people who'll leave the scene when it gets too uncool for them and get jaded and stop going to shows because they don't care for the music anyway. The promoters putting shifts in to put bands on are secondary only to the musicians themselves in something that's diligent and exciting to be a part of.

In any case, whatever ou think of the music, punk (like early rock'n'roll) has always served as a framework on which to hang other influences. To use some current fashionable examples, do you think that Bloc Party, The Cribs or Arctic Monkeys could possibly exist without underground scenes perpetuating the idea that simple music is a great way to learn how to create something bigger (Hell, Buffalo Tom wouldn't exist without it!)? The continued existence of the punk scene has, even if indirectly, allowed them to exist in the first place. And crucially, DIY punk rock has made me feel more energised, exhilarated, intimate and included than pretty much anything else I've ever done in my life. And long may it contune to do so. Let's also not forget that, when done right, the tunes can be killer.

Anyway - David Feck, you're right to a degree. There is romance and beauty and hope and despair in the forgotten music of the past - but let's not try to kill things to create the romance, shall we? Punk rock is going strong. And with all the excitement it's brought to me, I wouldn't want to live without it.

We're like comets but we're not that bright

Ok, this is my first blog post. Nothing challenging, nothing especially thoughtful - just a brief introduction.

I'm a 26 year old indie rock obsessive, originally from Garston in south Liverpool (currently residing three-and-a-half miles down the road in Wavertree). As a third-generation Everton supporter, I spend a good deal of my life frustrated and dealing with accusations of being a 'bitter Blue'. My good buddy Newt (of whom you are likely to read much, if football becomes the recurring theme of my intentions...) has a stock response to this, which I never tire of hearing: "Fucking right! We've got a lot to be bitter about!" That's not necessarily my opinion, but it never fails to raise a wry smile. Knowing, as I do, that EFC's juggernaut of disappointment shows no sign of slowing down at any time soon, I imagine I'll be returning to this subject quite often.

In any case, this blog isn't intended to be solely about football. It'll be about music - lots of it - and no doubt film, books and comics too. All of which we can return to at a later date. This post is just to get me started - the blog as a whole is for writing practice, and maybe externalising some of the more ridiculous musings that pass through my consciousness during the day. We'll see how that works anyway.

Right. This will serve as a suitable juncture to sign off for the time being... In the meantime, I'm going to continue the 90s emo revival that's been taking place on my stereo of late. Now where's my Jazz June album...?

w x