Friday, April 23, 2004
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
In the vague and distant hope that I’d know somebody there (I always used to, back in the day [the day being about 6 years ago, now]), I’ve just been down to the Brunswick Arms for a pint of Guinness. I didn’t know anybody there. Sure, I recognised a dozen, two dozen faces, the barmaid, the landlady, several drinkers, but I didn’t know anybody. I used to be able to go for a pint at 3pm and chew the fat with people, I knew everyone there when I was 19. Oh well.
I walked home along the seawall and up the cliff, intending to stand on one of the breakwaters and listen to Spirit Of Eden (I thought about buying some closed back Sennheiser PX200s earlier today to cut out the train noise which so pisses me off each morning, but remembered that if I did that I wouldn’t be able to hear waves lapping against the shore as I stood in the dark listening to Bark Psychosis or Talk Talk, and spent the cashmoney in the 5 for £30 campaign in Virgin instead). Sadly there were fishermen on each breakwater and a gaggle of teenage kids spread across the seawall and up the cliff face at several places. So I turned the iPod off.
And oh how it made me wish I was ten years younger and could hang out on the beach at night on a Friday and imagine what sex was like and smoke spliffs and think beer was foul and talk about who we hated and who we loved and how cool this was and feel sick at the thought of getting off with that girl and excited at the prospect at talking to this girl and feel jealous of my cooler better looking friends who were actually having sex somewhere and instead we would be setting a bonfire in the middle of the beach and taking a piss against the sandstone cliff to see if I could erode it and placing a bench on top of the beach hut as a statement and never ever ever even considering the prospect that one day I’d be nearly 25 and go out in Dawlish on a Friday night and not know anyone.
NJS
4/23/2004 09:56:00 pm
An Air Tonne Senner Haiku
No one remembers
Poor Roland Ratzenberger
Despite his GRATE name.
I loved Formula 1 when I was 13, but Senna's passing marked the end of my interest. He was by far my favourite because he had that mark of divine madness about him; he even claimed in an interview that he would never die on the racing track because God loved him, and that was why he drove like such a lunatic. Silly fool.
NJS
4/23/2004 09:50:00 pm
This Is A Local Band For Local People
Fuck knows that nobody from further afield than Taunton would be prepared to put up with this backwards, idealess, derivative growling shite.
Three bands last night, each playing for between 20 and 40 minutes at The Cellars Bar in Teignmouth, the town’s ‘cool’ pub where the teenagers in distressed denim and their dads who used to be in blues bands drink. And the builders with extravagant tattoos. The quiz always used to be on a Thursday – it was good fun. We’d generally come second to a team made up of people’s dads.
First up was Heresy, four local kids with too many guitars (third on the bill at a small Devonshire pub on a Thursday night and you shouldn’t really be swapping guitars after every song – they’re all drop D tuned and the acoustics and sound mix [ha!] in here mean no one’s going to be able to tell the difference sonically). I was sure they’d announced themselves as ‘Hennessey’ and was thus expecting some bling bling punk. What I got was Kyuss-go-emo without the campness and virtuosity. Not pleasant. The singer was wearing a white shirt with a tie.
Second came 62pennies from Birmingham. All hail Linda Blair in The Exorcist! When did it become a viable option for singers in ‘rock’ bands to imitate that guttural, possessed howl? To be fair 62pennies rocked and rocked hard, much more dynamic than the first band on, lots of jumping and throwing punk rock death metal shapes. But not my thing. And I don’t hold out much hope for the singer being able to speak properly in a few years time if he keeps on growling like Bill Hicks’ impression of a heavy metal demon for every chorus.
The reason for being there was Clay (spelt with a K – I’m google-proofing it [and wont mention names either]), a band who I went to school with and who are managed by Muse’s first manager. The one who didn’t manage to make them successful.
The singer and guitarist I knew for years at school without ever being friends with, since we were five years old or so, captains of the football team, good middle-class sporty stock, dads with moustaches and Vauxhalls, mums on the PTA. The singer I don’t think I’ve ever exchanged more than five words with in nearly 20 years. I don’t think anyone’s exchanged more than five words with him in 20 years. The guitarist is a nice enough bloke, but when we were 15/16/17 and everyone was into music, when I was an anachronism into Massive Attack and Orbital and The Verve and everyone else ‘into music’ at school was into grunge and post-grunge (this is 1994-1996, remember – provincial Teignmouth and Dawlish working at about 3 years behind schedule to London or wherever), he liked The Stone Roses and Nirvana and that was it. Now the bassist and drummer, that’s a different matter. The bassist is a girl a friend of mine sued to go out with (she dumped him to go out with the mute singer when we were 18), and a classically trained musician – cello, double bass, piano, violin, just about anything was pick-up-and-playable for her – and she actually teaches music as her day job. The drummer is her brother, and equally musically talented. And yet both of them are stuck playing post-grunge pseudo-Mogwai rhythm patterns for an Americanised singer with nothing to say (one lyric was [uergh, cliché alert] “are you listening or just waiting for your turn to speak?” – you don’t need to listen because he never says anything, he’s like a conversation blackhole, you become as mute as he is) to drawl over and the captain of the football team to riff on top of. Sure, the drumming was wicked (it carried the instrumental passages), but there are two fantastic musicians in this band being woefully underused, and as my mate Joe (who’s in a band in Leicester which I shall tell you more about over the coming weeks and months) said a couple of years ago when we last saw them, it’s fucking criminal to neglect that talent and ability.
Maybe it’d be OK if the songs were OK, but there was nothing there. Some postrock ambling by people who’ve heard Mogwai and maybe that Slint record but never bothered to explore beyond that (I wonder at this stage if Disco Inferno aren’t postpop as opposed to postrock), some Americanised drawl as I already said, some riffing… It sounds as if they’ve heard maybe five record between them, those records being The Bends, Nevermind, something by Soundgarden, something by Fugazi (bought for them) and something by Mogwai (bought for them [and probably Come On Die Young). And the worst thing is that the guitarist of the teenpunkpopgroovenoie band I helped give a prize too about a year ago (search the archives) was there (he’s had a growth spurt) and was obviously in awe because they’re older and more proficient than him, and because his brother’s friends with them, when his band were 1000 times more enjoyable and exciting.
I left feeling depressed and miserable at having wasted an evening I could have spent at home, alone, with a couple of glasses of red wine and a record I actually enjoyed, as backwards and safe as that is.
NJS
4/23/2004 02:02:00 pm
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Bizarre But Strangely Beautiful
Such are the reader reviews at Amazon, especially when they're written by people who don't speak English as a first language and thus don't suffer the awful colloquialisations that have driven a sense of poetry out of some of the everyday usage of the language. I just found this gem in a review of Black Secret Technology by A Guy Called Gerald written by someone from Valencia;
I do not remember much about this album,I heard it only twice or so, in a record store in Hamburg, but I recollect I liked it a lot...The question is if I was prepared for it,if it wasn't a little "far ahead from me" these year (1996)...At the time I was not so introduced in electronic and techno music,which I began to "investigate" later, but I've always regreted not having bought this album when I could...
Nowadays it is a really really hard work,finding it...
And just now I have a doubt: the boy at the record store,did really play for me this album,or was it anything else what sounded in my headphones that day?
This is another of my favourites, from a review of End Hits by Fugazi. The author is from Istanbul;
i think this is little differ from the other fugazi albums. its not only hardcore. you wait the song finish but it still going on you wait the refrain but it never come again i think its something different i called it avant hardcore i think you realy like it.
NJS
4/22/2004 12:53:00 pm
What's with...
Emails that look like this;
From: "Ôèëèïèé Åâëîãèåâè÷" Add to Address Book
To: auspiciousfish@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: Âðåìÿ áðàòü êîíäèöèîíåðû
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 21:29:33 +0000
ÑÓÏÅÐ ÖÅÍÛ!!!!
Ñàìñóíã îò - 300 ó.å.
Toshiba îò - 550 ó.å.
Panasonic îò - 550 ó.å.
Çâîíèòå åñòü âñå!!!
741-32-78, 778-84-47
I mean, wtf?!
NJS
4/22/2004 11:22:00 am
NME Says...
"Assessment" is a chest-bursting celebration of innovation and experimentation.
No it isn't. I mean, it is great, yes, but it's not that, you fucking idiots.
NJS
4/22/2004 11:13:00 am
Atkinson's Barmy
Ron Atkinson isn’t racist. At least I don’t think so. And at least not at any active, conscious, discriminatory level anyway. What he is, is a fucking idiot. However, by immediately resigning and apologising unreservedly he has at least done the right thing with regards to him being a fucking idiot.
One of the most amusing things about this whole kerfuffle is how the story was reported on This Is Lincolnshire, where they published the following sentence – The comments were understood to have been directed at Chelsea's Marcel Desailly, who is black. Atkinson is believed to have called the defender a "f***ing lazy nigger”.
Thanks to Dom for finding that priceless pearl of political incorrectness – obviously they’ve taken it down now.
IN WHAT WORLD IS THE WORD ‘FUCKING’ MORE OFFENSIVE THAN THE WORD ‘NIGGER’?!
I’d apologise to anyone offended by my usage of “the ‘N’ word” (as EVERYBODY on Radio Five Live comically referred to it last night – but what else can they do on the BBC? on any channel?), but if you’re bothered by it’s usage in that context then you should probably take a long cold bath.
Ron spoke to Five Live this morning and said he couldn’t remember saying it, and the consensus from black footballers who’ve worked with Ron (and let’s not forget that there have been many over the years – Ron was the first manager to field three black players in a starting eleven when he was at, I believe, WBA; plus, you know, DALIAN ATKINSON, who Ron insisted on playing at Sheffield Wednesday despite the fact that he was crap. Ron liked Dalian so much he even took him with him when he TURNCOATED OFF TO THE FUCKING VILLA FOR MORE MONEY THE ASSHOLE, AND LEFT US WITH TREVOR FUCKING FRANCIS WHO PROCEEDED TO RUN SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY INTO THE DARK DANK HOLE THEY NOW EXIST IN. THANKS, RON!), in fact just about everyone who’s worked with Ron, as a manager or as a ‘pundit’, seems to think it’s out of character.
The Guardian are reporting that Atkinson’s full statement was “He's what is known in some schools as a fucking lazy thick nigger.” I’m not sure whether that makes it better or worse. Could you infer that Atkinson meant “some schools, but not mine”, and even if you could would that make using the word any less deplorable? Do his comments suggest a more deep-seated bigotry that he’s managed to thus far conceal? Or is he just a man of a certain age and a certain demeanour, to whom the word ‘nigger’ has a very different connotations than it does to, you know, everyone else? He knows he shouldn’t say it; he tries not to say it; but, this once (and maybe more, who knows?) he couldn’t help himself; he didn’t realise; it just ‘slipped out’. I don’t believe for a second that Ron Atkinson is as bad as Noris McWhirter (or my gran for that matter), but one thing is for sure.
Ron, you’re a fool.
Plus he once called Francesco Totti “a little twat” on-air, and while this may be true, as Totti is a God round AusPishFish way, it’s not acceptable, Ron!
NJS
4/22/2004 10:27:00 am
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Bang!
This morning from the train (the intercity rather than the normal piece of shit) I’m sure I saw a seal about 30 yards off the Dawlish coast. At first I thought it was a large black dog, it certainly wasn’t a shag or other seabird, but then it ducked under the water and vanished. Last time I checked, dog’s didn’t have gills, so I can only conclude that it must’ve been a seal. And that’s brilliant.
But anyway…
Football.
BANG!
Two weeks without so much as kicking a football. Two weeks at least, more like three, due to holiday, trips to Halifax (dogs can’t look up, can they?), European games, etcetera. But tonight, shifted from Tuesday’s at 8.30 to Wednesday’s at 7.30 (time to eat a pizza, drink a bottle of wine and do some blogging after the game!), back in action with Timepiece FC at the five-a-side (tonight was seven-a-side) ‘training’ session. Did my usual lap of the pitch and a few stretches to try and loosen my dodgy knees. And then, away!
Goal down early on, not good. And then… Hat-trick! And a hat-trick of nutmegs too! And I set up two more goals! And we won 7-5! I’d describe it in greater detail but I’VE BEEN TRYIGN TO WRITE THIS SINCE 10PM AND BASTARD PEOPLE KEEP BASTARD INTERRUPTING ME VIA MSN MESSENGER TO DISCUSS ARTICLES OR ASK FOR RECOMMENDATIONS OF MUSIC. Not that I mind, but, you know, I was gonna wax lyrical and bask in my footballing genius.
For the record, three right-footers and one that came off god-knows-where off a fast low cross.
Yeah.
NJS
4/21/2004 11:07:00 pm
Delakota - "The Rock"
This is due for publication on Stylus in a week or two, but as it's a minor piece I don't think there's any problem with posting it here now.
How many times do you hear a tune on the radio and absolutely lose your shit? If memory serves, and it doesn’t, I spent 1997 perched by my shitty stereo with a tape at the ready and my finger on the record button, tuned to Radio 1, stealing music the old fashioned way. I lost my shit for “Kowalski”, for “Block Rockin’ Beats”, “Bitter Sweet Symphony”, “Play It Cool”, “My Mate Paul”, “Risingson”. I remember hearing “Blind” on the Mary Anne Hobbs show incredibly late at night, incredibly quiet, half asleep, not knowing who it was and wondering what the fuck it could be, whether it was- no, it couldn’t be that. But it was.
I never lost my shit as much as I did in spring 98 when I heard this though. I must have caught it half a dozen times and been frantic on each occasion. So frantic I never managed to catch who it was by. Maybe I was driving, or just stepping out of the door to go to work. Maybe I was delirious? I’d passed the recording-stuff-off-the-radio phase and hence never had a tape to hand in order to catch the bugger, so all I ever got was fleeting glances, tantalising whispers. I set about scouring NME and the internet for reviews of current singles to try and find out what it was. Eventually I concluded that it must be this, but I still wasn’t sure. Sod it. My brother worked at the time as a rep for a record company, so I called him on his mobile, knowing he’d be in and out of record shops all day, and instructed him to buy me a copy. If I was wrong I’d lost £2, if I was right I could play the fucker every damn day for the rest of my life.
I was right.
I don’t quite play it every day. But I would if I remembered. My memory is poor.
So what was it that made me lose my shit? A simple acoustic strum, a shuffling beat, some tactfully placed, ringing piano, bass that you feel rather than hear, some wispy slide guitar, a guy who can’t really sing talking about how “if there’s a boat or plane / out of here / I’ll be leaving” and sitting on a rock in the middle of the night “with a mirror and a flashlight / but nothing came / it’s alright / and I turned the speakers on their side / I pointed the sound right up at the sky…” Which is good, great even, but twirling and dancing out of the right-hand channel all the while was this sound that I can’t explain… The most beautiful sound in all the world… I’ve had people tell me it’s a guitar trill run through an FX unit, a blues scale sped up to triple speed, whatever, whatever, whatever… It’s lazing on a beach. It’s a light breeze across your warm face. It’s palm trees, sand, sunlight and shade. It spirals and spins and sings and soothes and it’s there all the time, through the verses, the chorus, the heady climax when the slide guitar on the opposite side of the world feels like it’s going to make you giddy and sick with delirium, through the fade-to-sunset when the piano rings out over it in perfect concentric circles. Sometimes it falls almost silent in the mix and sometimes it grows and grows and threatens to overwhelm the rest of the song but at all times it’s there and it’s bliss.
The single edit ran for four minutes, straight into it and out of it again. When I finally got hold of the album a couple of months later it was stretched out, beginning with submarine sounds and a dub daze, the strum and the sound dropping in at 38 seconds, the most beautiful sound in all the world and I’d be quite, quite happy if it lasted forever. I’ve mentioned this song twice in other features for Stylus and every time I get emails from people who remember it, people who think it houses the most beautiful sound in the world too. It does. Believe me. Find out.
NJS
4/21/2004 10:34:00 pm
Delays
Faded Seaside Glamour
You may have already read this on Stylus
Delays look like mid-90s hairdressers. Which is to say that they’re even more camply and messily stylised than The Cooper Temple Clause. Which is to say that if you saw them in the street you’d thing they were nobheads. Which is to say that… They’re from Southampton, which is most definitely not Brighton. I doubt they take pot plants on stage with them. Or potted plants. Maybe pot plants.
Anyway, four boys from Southampton with silly hair and some guitars and a singer who sounds, when he realises what he should be doing, like a girl. And a really beautiful girl at that. Delays also have some Cocteau Twins records, some Byrds records, probably that first Verve album, and, as their secret weapon, Graham Sutton (Bark Psychosis) on production duties. As such Faded Seaside Glamour sounds absolutely immaculate and beautiful and crystalline and occasionally just noisy and ragged enough to not make you feel like you’re being slowly squeezed through a piece of perfectly clean and clear glass into a strange alternate universe where Sigur Ros are rabbits and Kate Bush is an enormous smiling cat.
“Wanderlust” starts with synthetic steel drums and sounds like a collaboration between Liz Fraser, Plaid and some boys with guitars and lots of reverb pedals. Obviously this means that it’s marvellous and makes me want to be a bird or something, particularly when the girlboy voice impels us to “come over / we’ll go missing”, the running-away-together meme never sounding quite so ethereal and compelling. And those steel drums, oh boy. “Nearer Than Heaven” follows quickly afterwards and is almost as lovely, laden with harmonies like The Byrds dissolved through a kaleidoscope, and slowly devolves in a haze of guitar abuse and echo. The opening triumvirate is completed in style by “Long Time Coming”, in which singer Greg Gilbert (he does have a name, after all) perhaps inadvisably sinks from his McAlmont-esque dream-woven falsetto into a gruffer register, but the arrangement, tune and, most prominently, the production, save the song from failing drastically and in fact take it somewhere wonderful.
And that’s the key to this record. On about 30% of the songs Delays strike pay dirt; as well as the opening trio, single “Hey Girl” soars like The Hollies, closer “On” is beautiful house-y shoegaze, and “Stay Where You Are” rocks in an understated, rich way, but the likes of “Bedroom Scene” and “There’s Water Here” are largely inconsequential. Nice enough melodies and average tunes are repeatedly elevated by the superlative, rich and detailed production which makes Delays sound like a much better band than they actually are. Still, while it lasts, Faded Seaside Glamour is a beautiful trip. You just might not feel compelled to take it all that often.
NJS
4/21/2004 10:32:00 pm
Albums I Am Looking Forward To
Or else already know are brilliant but which haven't been released yet
The Beta Band
Orbital
The Streets
Embrace
Mouse On Mars
Bark Psychosis
Note that these are in order the third, ninth, second, fourth, seventh and second albums by these artists. Is this because I am growing old?
Also... What Would You Like To See More Of On AusPishFish?
See that 'comments' button directly beneath these funny words? Use it, suckers.
NJS
4/21/2004 01:16:00 pm
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Cock A Hoop
Last night whilst channel hopping during the last bit of the 10 o'clock news before Enemy Of The State came back on, I flipped to Sky One which was showing Britian's Wildest. I have never seen this before. Anyway, the twunt (thanks Jess) presenting it said summat like "what would Britain's Wildest gameshow be like?" and then described 'Cock A Hoop' in which three young men put rings attached to electrical sensors around their willies and then receive a lapdance from an Essex girl and the last one to get an erection (the erection causing a bell to ring and a light to flash [the light being in the shape of a willy, obv.]) wins the money.
Anyway, obviously this was hideous, and there were three young men sitting in these throne-like contraptions with red pants on (fitted boxers type things, in case anyone's wondering), and at the signal they put the rings around their willies and then the Essex girl came in and took her bra off and did a dance in just a thong and TWO OF THE GUYS WERE FROM DAWLISH AND THIS MORNING I SAW ONE OF THEM AT THE TRAIN STATION AND IT WAS VERY WEIRD.
So yeah.
It was the last guy to get an erection (who was thus the winner) who I saw. Does this mean he's impotent? Obviously I realise this doesn't mean he's impotent at all, just that he might have a small dick. Impotence is no laughing manner
Also, Cuddle Parties.
NJS
4/20/2004 10:12:00 am
Monday, April 19, 2004
I mean...
Have you heard "Peacocks"? If not go and buy Tallahasse just for that. And the fact that, you know, the rest of it is fucking amazing too.
NJS
4/19/2004 08:56:00 pm
The Mountain Goats
I've avoided mentioning them at all because I vaguelly know John Darnielle via ILM and thus it would be weird, but FUCKING HELL WHAT BEAUTIFUL MUSIC.
That is all.
NJS
4/19/2004 08:55:00 pm
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Adem - Homesongs
Why do the members of Fridge work so much better seperately than together?
NJS
4/18/2004 11:28:00 am
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