unpopular

The state we were in

A chance mention of Belle & Sebastian by a colleague last week has sent me back to their records for the first time in really far too long. The key thing that strikes me is just how well I know those songs from the first two albums and the Jeepster EPs; just how deeply they have burrowed into my psyche, becoming, I guess, some essential part of my identity. It can be easy to forget how important some things have been in our lives after all. Time slips by, we move in different directions, lose sight of the moments that acted as catalysts. That doesn’t devalue them of course. It’s just the way of the world.

So it’s been lovely to reconnect with those records, those songs and those memories. When I mentioned it on Twitter someone immediately mentioned the old Sinister mailing list and I admit I too had been thinking of it. Looking back on those days now it strikes me that it was all very much at the moment where the ‘old’ analogue world met the new digital one. There were animated discussions online of course, yet it all supported (and was in turn supported by) very physical, social moments from picnics to meet-ups at shows. What feels especially strange looking back now is the way that we shared the actual musical moments. I remember the prize for the most posts in the first month of Sinister going live was a tape of some rare Stuart Murdoch demos and other assorted early Belle & Sebastian recordings and demos. Yes, a TAPE. Posted through the mail. Someone called The Duke Of Harringay won that. Heady days.

These days anyone can do a search and download some MP3s in the time it takes to make a cup of tea. Make of that what you will. Pros and cons. Ups and downs.

Now not having taken the effort or the time to do one of those searches myself I am not sure how readily available recordings of some of the earlier Belle & Sebastian demos and live shows are. Perhaps they have been available for a long time. Certainly those BBC radio sessions that we used to pass around on tape have long since entered the digital realm on CD and download. They are wonderful of course and I am not about to post them here for you really ought to have purchased them already. What I will do however is post some live shows, starting with the evening performance at Manchester Town Hall in December of 1997. I cannot quite remember who made the original recording (on mini-disc, I think) but if they, or the group object to having it available here just shout and I’ll delete the link.

No smoking in the auditorium

Down to Dawlish again

A sunny day in Dawlish, the turn point on a quick Sunday run to loosen my legs after too long away from the bike. There were blue skies and a warming sun for sure, but nevertheless I was glad of leg and armwarmers, gilet, oversocks and merino gloves. Quite how the riders I saw in short sleeves and shorts felt I dread to think. The first glimpse of sunshine does seem to do strange things to people. Desperation or somesuch... And I guarantee you that there will have been hordes of students out in Exeter wearing shorts and flip-flops. *rolls eyes, mutters something about young people today*

We Make Believe

Don't Fall - The Chameleons (from 'Script Of The Bridge'. On YouTube)
Another Bed - The Twilight Sad (from 'No One Can Ever Know'. On YouTube)
We Make Believe - Observer Drift (Bandcamp)
Predictable Kinds of Thoughts - The Pear Traps (Bandcamp)
Capricornia - Allo, Darlin' (On Slumberland's Soundcloud)
The Good Things - Summer Twins (Bandcamp)
Comme Des Garçons - Sleuth (Bandcamp and on YouTube)
No Idealists Left - Liechtenstein (from 'Fast Forward')
Arnold's Song - The Creakies (Bandcamp)
Special - Randolph's Leap (Bandcamp)
Are You Who You Think You Are? - The Spook School (Bandcamp)
Jealousy - Capitals (Soundcloud)
Come Home - HEHFU (Bandcamp)
A Well Of Hours - S's (Bandcamp)
Coral Reef - CAVE CAT (Soundcloud)
Skin Storm - Bradford (on YouTube)
Forever Boy - A Classic Education (Soundcloud and on Vimeo)
I Hope He's Everything You Wanted Me To Be - Just Joans (from forthcoming volume 4 of TVP's tribute on The Beautiful Music)

Give yourself a treat, download for a day available now!

Forever Boy

A Classic Education - Forever Boy (Official Video) from A Classic Education on Vimeo.

Let me make it clear that I do not like motorcycles. Smelly, noisy, greasy things. I do not particularly like the iconography of motorcycles either, although I can understand the appeal and the roots that feed into popular culture are crystal clear. So whilst on an emotional level this new film for A Classic Education’s fabulous ‘Forever Boy’ does little for me, there is nevertheless something enormously appealing about it. The Pop culture connections spin around, from ‘Loveless’ to Bruce Davidson; from ‘Girl On A Motorcycle’ to Danny Lyon. Of course ACE have referenced Danny Lyon on the ‘Call It Blazing’ set and rightly so, for Lyon is one of the truly great photographers. And after all there has always been something of the gang in all the best groups.

 

There is something enormously appealing in the obsessional nature of investigative trail following at work here too. The film features 70 year old ex-Motorcycle racer Giovanni Collina who continues to ride his motorcycle every day. And if the physical reality of that means little to me then the abstract is the soul’s essential life-blood itself and sits so perfectly alongside those evocative tales of Italian cyclists that Herbie Sykes has been excavating these past few years. And really, aren’t Herbie’s texts so spiritually analogous with Lyon’s photographs? And don’t A Certain Education capture something of that spirit in their sound?

If you’re in North America you can catch ACE on tour over the next couple of months with Cloud Nothings, Ganglians and others. And when you’re done watching the ‘Forever Boy’ film, take a look at this excellent little documentary by LessTV. 

- BLAZING ROADS - A Classic Education from Less Tv on Vimeo. 

 

Sleep Around

 

Apparently there is to be a new Spaghetti Anywhere EP featuring this particular cut. I am looking forward to it enormously having thoroughly enjoyed listening to their previous releases last summer. Indeed, they cropped up on two Unpopular mixes here and here. Expect a track from the new EP to similarly feature on a mix here soon. Catch their previous releases from their Bandcamp. The lovely 'Doolally' and 'Arrochar' singles are free, so really there is no excuse.

Wonderful in young life

 

Have you picked up the new Twilight Sad record? I hope so. It will make your skin creep.

Not that previous Twilight Sad records were playful romps of sweetness and light. Just that with ‘No-one can Ever Know’ they seem to have taken their dark undercurrents, amplified them tenfold and created a contemporary gothic monument to ennui and existential pleasure. Certainly one of thee essential records of 2012 so far. 

And is it just me or is there a distinct nod to the sound of fellow Scots (whisper it) Simple Minds in this record? It seems to me to resonate with similar motorik rhythms as the Steve Hillage produced ‘Sons & Fascination’ or its predecessor of Eastern European Cold War travelogues ‘Empires & Dance’. And as I wrote here and here, there is nothing wrong with that.

 

 

The past is a foreign country

The past is a foreign country right enough. Especially your own.

I was listening to the very wonderful Shade Tree earlier today. The mention of Göteborg did it. It made me realise that it had been so long since I had listened to many of the great groups and artists that I put on those gorgeous hand-made 3” CDRs under the guise of the ‘i wish i was unpopular’ label. And Shade Tree were the first.

I could not quite remember when I first heard Shade Tree but was sure I must have written about it. Well, it took me a time machine to find it, but I finally did. Here’s what I wrote:

Friday, October 10, 2003

Fuck! This is GREAT! A CD that comes packed in a sleeve of blue watercolour splodges (kind of like that Windy and Carl 10”, cant remember the songs, it was blue vinyl), all the way from Sweden, along with a note saying ‘Dear Mr Fitchett, I’m sure the competition for your stereo time must be fierce. But we try anyway….’ And ‘maybe it would be better if we screamed more. If we sounded angry, cocky, hostile, upset or just driven by the turbo-angst known to make old male Swedish critics exclaim: This band is for real!’

Well, this band is for real too. They’re called Shade Tree and these four songs are glorious fragile country folk, all sweetly strummed guitars and two voices mingling like Emmylou and Gram, or maybe more accurately Gene and Carla. Yeah, that good.

I hope Shade Tree never start screaming. They sound too perfect the way they do right now. Pure, this must be, it has to be… 

Damn, now I REALLY want to start a record label.

posted by duke harringay at 7:39 PM

And the time machine? Well, I knew I started this blog on TypePad back in November of 2003 but before that I had an original Blogger site hosted on my own Tangents.co.uk server. My own archives of that were lost long ago, but thankfully (?) a digital copy is stored here. It is so strange to glance back into one’s digital past, and several things stand out: 1. there are no videos! 2. posts were long. Like, um, ‘articles’. Do people still write ‘articles’? On blogs? Which brings me to point 3. if I could go back and give myself some advice it would be to edit, dammit. Edit!

So, whilst I fight the temptation to revisit that past in any great depth I cannot resist the urge to re-post that music. It deserves to be heard.

i wish i was in Göteborg (slight return)

There was a time when it seemed like almost every release on my ‘I Wish I Was Unpopular’ label came from Göteborg. Shade Tree, Damn The Lion, Swissair, Boat Club. All different, all great. If I was still doing a label in 2012 I think I would be similarly smitten by the same Swedish city. For hot on the heels of the wonderful Alpaca Sports come the very different but equally fine Cave Cat.

Naturally I am showing my personal context when I suggest that there is something of the mid to late 1980s Northern England about the sound of Cave Cat. Nevertheless, there is certainly a touch of The Chameleons about them. Easterhouse and Bradford too, perhaps. The bands not the places. Though maybe those too.

Don’t take my word for it though. They have two tracks going free for all on their Soundcloud presence, with the promise of another single arriving on March 5th. Certainly ones to watch.

On Soundcloud
Listen on Spotify

Just Like Gold

I know we go through our lives making mental lists of our favourite labels and brands. It is one of the pleasures of living in a capitalised culture after all. It might be clothes. It might be bicycles. It might be record labels. It might be left-leaning philosophers. The idea of allegiances does not, after all, imply a certain shallowness.

There was once a terrific little series about record labels on my Tangents site. Blood and Fire rubbed shoulders with Fast and Thrill Jockey cuddled up to Postcard. Fourteen years on, I do wonder if Kevin were to write the piece again if his top ten would be different. Who would be in, who would be out?

If I were to write a piece about favourite labels at the moment, one place in my top ten would almost certainly go to Bleeding Gold. They’re not perfect and I can certainly pass on some of their releases (the French electro pop in particular seems pale and charmless) but when they get it right they hit my sweet spot with praiseworthy precision. 

In The Notes they gave us one of my most played groups of 2011; their ‘Wishing Well’ EP a gorgeous stripped back beast that was beautifully packaged. That led to my grabbing a HEHFU set which I will admit initially left me underwhelmed. Thanks in part to some recent prodding by my friend Graham I have revisited the ‘Music For My Broken Ears’ collection and found it much more appealing. Certainly it would sit nicely with those Kestrels records I have been digging recently. And it is always nice to find delight in things you had tucked away in the back of a drawer after all.

Meanwhile, as mentioned last month, Tear Talk connected first time out. How could they not? With tinges of The Wake and Field Mice, their ‘Port Sunlight’ digital EP is surely deserving of a sweet 10” physical release? It would sit so nicely alongside my ‘Snowball’ and ‘So Said Kay’ discs after all.

From along the M62, Manchester’s oddly named S’s give us more in the same vein. Indeed, spinning ‘A Well Of Hours’ for the first time I could have sworn that I was listening to a long lost Orchids track. Their press release suggests The Strokes, David Bowie, Best Coast and The B****** as possible reference points. Me, I’ll give ‘em two of those ‘B’s and suggest instead echoes of Jazzateers and see how that flies with you.

Stream the Bleeding Gold 'Cult Of The Hopeless' sampler from their Bandcamp page.

Bike Shed bad, Wiggle good

I came into Exeter this morning to with the express intention of getting some new brake blocks for my bike. I could have stayed home in the warm and got them online of course but I thought I would give local business an opportunity to prove to me why they deserve not to fail. Guess what? They failed. Specifically, the Exeter branch of The Bike Shed failed. Okay, so it was early Saturday morning but that's no excuse surely? Certainly no excuse for leaving a customer standing at an unattended till for several minutes without so much as an acknowledgement. At least two members of staff had the opportunity to make the sale. One wandered past apparently in a daze, perhaps moving stock from one end of the store to the other. Another spent time on the phone beside the workshop, clearly aware of my presence. I even made eye contact. But when his call was finished did he come and serve me? Nope, he just busied himself unpacking a bike from a box. I guess making a sale just doesn't seem that important in these recessionary times, huh?

In the big scheme of things of course losing a twenty quid sale won't ruin The Bike Shed. But how expensive is bad feeling? How much does a bad vibe cost a business? In contrast, I have just sat down in the Boston Tea Party, logged onto the Wiggle site and bought what I wanted. Cheaper. And with a far greater sense of engagement. Man, it's really not good when a website gives you a better feeling of personal attention that a physical shop.

So you know, when physical stores whine about losing out to online retailers maybe they should ask themselves why that is. And they damn well better not come looking to me for sympathy.