unpopular

Why is it always cycling that gets dragged through the mire when there’s doping in sport to report on? I’m not denying that there’s been an appalling amount of drug abuse in cycling over the years, but it’s hardly the only sport you could say that about. So the IOC have reported that there are seven positive tests for CERA EPO and/or Insulin from last years’ Olympics. Two were apparently medalists, one of them a gold medalist from athletics, and one a cyclist. What a surprise then that it is Davide Rebellin’s name that has been leaked first, thereby ensuring that it is once again cycling that takes the brunt of the initial press exposure of the story. It was the same with Operation Puerto in 2006. There were a large number of athletes from a range of sports implicated in that investigation, but it was only cyclists who were publicly named and subsequently punished. It’s still rumbling on too, with Alessandro Valverde. And all the other athletes from all the other sports? Well they all got away with it, didn’t they? Presumably because cheating in those sports doesn’t really matter.

Dublab radio

Those nice people at Dublab asked me to record a slot for their online radio a while back. The show has now found its way online, and can be accessed here. Playlist is below. Sorry about all the wittering in between the music...

Trembling Blue Stars - Abba on the Jukebox
Chuck & Mary Perrin - Violets of Dawn
Saint Etienne - Former Lover
The Millenium - The Ways I Love You
Jens Lekman - Julie
The Kinks - Sweet Lady Genevieve
Chris T-T - A-Z (Piano Version)
Gravenhurst - Trust
The Granite Shore - Tomorrow Morning, 3 a.m.
James Roberts - Laughing Mostly
Wolfhounds - Restless Spell
The Magnetic Fields - With Whom to Dance
Abba - Should I Laugh or Cry?

Spirit Of A Vampire

Have you see Let The Right One In yet? We managed to get out to the cinema last night to catch it. What a delight. Certainly one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. The more so since seeing it came so soon on the back of being subjected to Twilight, which is surely one of the most dreadful things ever committed to celluloid. Or DV tape, or whatever it was filmed in. I mean, what a cop-out for letting the vampires go out in the sunlight; oooh, their skin glistens like diamonds, what a tragedy. Bless their little Emo souls. Oh hang on, do they have souls? Whatever.

At least these Swedish vampires obey the rules of the game. And are the first vampire characters who I think work effectively as characters that you can identify as victims. I’m sure that others with a much greater knowledge of the genre will let me know of other examples of that, but hey, I think they’d have to go some to be as effective as the ones in Let The Right One In. There are so many great things about the movie. It’s staggeringly beautiful and outrageously ugly, deliciously uplifting and heartbreakingly depressing. Often in the same instant. Wonderful.

I guess I also liked it because it touches on an idea I’ve been throwing around in my head for a while, which is that of characters who span essentially endless stretches of time but who remain the same age ("Twelve. More or less.") and are therefore unable to acquire the wisdom that aging supposedly brings. Also the ideas of impossible (or at least improbable) love and of the sacrifices made for that love, which in many respects is essentially what Let The Right One In is all about of course.

But of course it’s also about vampires, which gives me the excuse to share my vampire mix with you. I compiled it last year for my Twilight loving friends. Usual rules about buying things you like apply. If you don’t, I’m sending the vampires round to rip off your heads. They know where you live…

Blood Bitch - Cocteau Twins
Vampire Island - Drexciya
I'm A Vampire - Future Bible Heroes
Spirit Of A Vampire - The Go-Betweens
Vampire Girl - Jonathan Richman
Night Of The Vampire - The Moontrekkers
Vampire - Sebadoh
Teenage Vampire - Sultans of Ping F.C.
Secret Vampires - bis
Shopping for Blood - Franz Ferdinand
Si Vous Connaissez Quelque Chose De Pire Qu'un Vampire, Parlez M'en Toujours, Ça Pourra Peut-Être Me Faire Sourire - Stella
Blood Is Sweeter Than Honey - Jazzateers
Maize Stalk Drinking Blood - The Mountain Goats
Love With Blood - The Siddeleys
Blood - Tindersticks
(Nothing But) Blood - This Mortal Coil
Dracula - Kevin Tihista's Red Terror
The Vampire - Buffy Sainte-Marie
Vampire Forest Fire - The Arcade Fire

Do you need direction? (you know I do)

I put this together some time ago, uploaded it to my Box and then promptly forgot about it. So here, resurrected from its digital tomb, is my needy mix.

Download here. Tracklist below. As always, if you like something, buy the records and support the artists please.

I Need Direction - Teenage Fanclub
Needing Someone - Gene Clark
That's All I Really Need - The Springfield Rifle
Where Were You When I Needed You - Deep Six
You're Going To Need Somebody - The Blue Aeroplanes
Don't Need Food - Hurrah!
If You Ever Need A Stranger - Jens Lekman
I Don't Need You Any More - The Kinks
All I Need Is Everything - Aztec Camera
I Think I Need A New Heart - The Magnetic Fields
I Don't Need You - My Bloody Valentine
She Don't Need You - The Primitives
If You Need Me - The Purple Hearts
You'll Be Needing Me Baby - Nino Tempo And April Stevens
Everything A Man Could Ever Need - Glen Campbell
I Need You - Position
If Ever You Need Me - Sandie Shaw
I Need Your Hand In Mine - Twinkle
Nobody Needs Your Love More Than I Do - Tammy Grimes
All You Need Is Love - The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu

Phil Ochs July 1964 Newport

Phil Ochs July 1964 Newport, originally uploaded by John Rudoff, M. D..

From a stunning (and I mean STUNNING) photo set on Flickr. Also included on there are possibly the only colour photos of Dylan gone electric at the Newport Festival in '65 with the Butterfield Band. Historic.

Girvan

tony doyle, originally uploaded by unpop.

Speaking of Girvan, the annual Girvan Three Day cycle race was at the weekend. It’s always a fixture of the Easter holiday weekend, and when I lived in Troon it was the one race we would always go down to watch. The Saturday evening town centre crit was the one we’d always gravitate to. My brother would commandeer the car and Troon Velo would cram in, arguing all the way down the coast about what riders were going to be on form. The first year we went down was one of the years when Tony Doyle was riding; Doyle being at that time a world champion pursuiter (so a bit like Bradley Wiggins I guess. Can you imagine Wiggins riding the Girvan?) and a bit of a star. The photo above is from after the crit, when he posed for photos with some of the fledgling Troon Velo crew. Lovely chap.

Ailsa Craig

I’m not sure exactly why it came to mind, but I was thinking the other day about Ailsa Craig. Something from my past – a landmark imprinted on my inner eye or something. I wrote about it in passing once, a long time ago, as one of the landmarks of the coastal bike ride from Troon to Girvan and back. As I recall there was some reference to Blue Orchids’ ‘Bad Education’ and to Keats’ poem in the same text. I remember also that there was a track on the Grimsey label’s Do Not Fear The Future compilation by a group called Ailsa Craig. Am I right in thinking that was something to do with Ninian Hawick, whose ‘Scottish Rite Temple Stomp’ was such a hit around these parts? Well, whatever, here’s the Keats poem, a photo of Ailsa Craig (with added bonus of The Waverley) and the aforementioned track.

Ailsa Craig - 'Ballad Of The Oread'

TO AILSA ROCK
(1816)
by John Keats

        Hearken, thou craggy ocean pyramid!
          Give answer from thy voice, the sea-fowls' screams!
          When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?
        When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid?
        How long is't since the mighty Power bid
          Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams?
          Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams,
        Or when grey clouds are thy cold coverlid?
        Thou answer'st not, for thou art dead asleep;
          Thy life is but two dead eternities-
        The last in air, the former in the deep;
          First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies-
        Drown'd wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep,
          Another cannot wake thy giant size.

                        THE END

You're Beautiful

Descent down into Sidmouth, originally uploaded by unpop.

Have I mentioned recently how much I love (1.) Devon and (2.) my bicycle? Well I do. Lots and lots and lots.

Now I don’t know about anyone else, but I tend to get a single song stuck in my head during a ride. Not always, but quite often. Usually on rides more than an hour and half or so. Yesterday it was ‘Lund’ by Hello Saferide. Wednesday it was also Hello Saferide, but this time ‘Anna’. Top tunes, I think you will agree. Today, meanwhile, it was ‘You’re Beautiful’ by Love & Money. Now I feel I need to explain myself on this one, because it’s not the sort of song that I expect many of my friends to like. It’s a bit, well, ‘smooth’… Love & Money being part of that whole Glasgow Blue Eyed Soul scene from the ‘80s which didn’t age at all well. Having said that, some of those records, specifically the Hipsway and the first Love & Money albums nevertheless hold a strangely special place in my heart. And let’s not forget the links in those two groups to people like The Jazzateers, Altered Images and Friends Again. Indeed Friends Again were the reason I liked Love & Money, this being the group that James Grant formed when he split with Chris Thomson. Oddly enough though I never bought any of the records, and it was only a short time after the debut album came out that my heart was irrevocably wrenched in the direction of shambling indie underachievers. But that’s another story.

I picked up the debut Love & Money set from iTunes last week in a fit of nostalgia. Like I said, I don’t think much of it has aged well, although ‘You’re Beautiful’ does still sound like a rather lovely song. I kind of wish I could hear it without the over-fussy production, but hey, you can’t have everything. It sounded good in my head today too, summing up pretty much how I felt about things in general: Devon looking glorious in the Spring sunshine, and my bike going nicely along beneath me.

Love & Money - 'You're Beautiful'

On top of Brendan Hills looking across at Wales

On top of Brendan Hills looking across at Wales, originally uploaded by unpop.

The photo doesn't do it justice, but the visibility today was terrific. This is from the top of the Brendon Hills, just out of Wheddon Cross, looking north to the Bristol Channel and Wales. You could see Wales really clearly. I thought this was going to be a really hard ride, but it was fine. Of course the weather helped...

Pink Flag

Whilst writing yesterday I took a moment to glance back at a few older pieces. It can be strange looking back on your old work, regardless of media. You recognize the impulses and meanings behind their creation, but you don’t necessarily recognize them as still being yours.

One of the pieces I looked at was this one. It was from a series of fragments that cropped up on the very first incarnation of the Tangents website, and were themselves variations on the theme started several years previously when I was making a desperate attempt at a novel. The asterisks are a stylistic fragmentation hangover from that.

I still like this piece, although I am unsure if that’s just because it captures a long lost moment from my past. Perhaps I kid myself that I actually like it because of the clipped structure. There is a nod to The Great Gatsby in there too, though I am not sure anyone would spot it, just as I am not sure anyone would notice the old switcheroo at the end of the story I posted yesterday.

I also used this story as the basis of my first ‘published’ recording. A very rudimentary hash of sampling recorded on an old HP PC and a four track tape machine that I borrowed from school. All the samples were taken from the Wire album. My track appeared on the infamous ‘The Family Twee’ double CD in 1998 and I think I can safely say it was the least musical effort on there. I think I may have also performed it ‘live’ at my one and only performance, upstairs at the Betsey Trotwood prior to the first Bowlie. I was very nervous then after spotting Nick Currie and Amelia Fletcher in the audience…

Anyway, here for your aural torture is the track. And the story.

The Duke Of Harringay: ‘Pink Flag’

PINK FLAG

[militia]

Lucy and Sarah came around at two. This was usual.

*

Sundays are so boring, said Sarah, and Lucy and I said Uh-huh together as a reply. I said How's school? and Sarah goes, Usual.

*

You Bored? I ask Lucy, and she says No in a strange drawl, pushing the fingers of her right hand up through her hair.

*

Lucy did that a lot.

*

Around half two Sarah goes, Let's go out for a walk, and we say Okay, and Why not.

[shells]

There was still a building site in those days, and we walked around through shells of houses. We climbed up large mounds of earth, and clambered down the other side.

*

I've got a flag, said Sarah, and she did. It was an old broom handle with a piece of pink plastic that she stuck on top. A Pink Flag, I said. Very Wire. Lucy said Huh? and I said nothing.

*

I'm going to claim that hill, said Sarah, pointing to an earth mound near the burn that ran the length of the golf course. There was a yellow bulldozer parked near it and I said It won't be there tomorrow but Sarah just goes I don't care.

*

Lucy grabbed my hand and smiled. Come on, she said, and that was all.

[pink flag]

We stood, the three of us together, on top of the earth mound. Sarah stuck the broom handle into it. It leaned slightly towards the west and the sea, and the pink plastic flapped almost imperceptibly in the slight breeze. Lucy's white skirt wafted too, and I noticed that it had small smudges of brown around the hem.

*

This is my hill, said Sarah. This is my flag.

*

It was a pink flag.

Alistair Fitchett, 1995