unpopular

Feeling old and tired and out of touch. Just like the Vic Godard tune, which I am playing right now. I wish I was more of a social animal, but I have no social skills at all. Sat behind the Bacardi Breezer wooden table/bar in the Cavern for several hours today with my head spinning and just feeling generally out of it. It was great seeing what Izzy and everyone was doing, but I couldn’t help my heart sinking and thinking about those Beach Boys lines again… you know the ones… ‘well that’s not me’ … those ones. Everyone’s stuff was so cool. It was so clearly made out of the need to just create things, to communicate love and passion, and next to it all my stuff just looked too glossy, too tired, too jaded. Kind of how I feel most of the time. Apart from the glossy bit, of course.

I passed on a bunch of stuff that I’d found in the bottom of boxes in the geek lair. I found a couple of copies of the three issues of Fire Raisers, which was strange. As I passed them to Izzy I realised they must be nearly 13 years old or so. Very scary. Which means I guess she would have been six or something when we were making them, so, you know, that just makes me shiver and not in a good way.

I kind of blew out of the Cavern in a cold rush I think. I am so bad at that kind of thing. I can totally understand why people call me arrogant. When really its just I’m pretty much terrified. I mean, I can stand in front of a class of 30 kids with no problem at all… hell, I can stand in front of a hall of 250 kids and do a presentation with barely a flutter of trepidation, but I sat next to someone for several hours today and just barely managed to exchange a few words about Kathy Acker. Which I’m sure was just fine by the other party, but you know, it’s kind of weird. I think I belong in an era where formal introductions were the norm or something.

I want to just go curl up in bed and read comics and sleep forever.

Box Tops ‘The Letter’ just came on iTunes. Sigh. Just remembering one night in The Anchorage pub with Jon, drinking strong real ale and talking about how Alex Chilton was God, and this playing on the jukebox. Must be 15 years ago now. It was just after we got back from the USA, before we drifted apart again, as you do with friends of those younger years. I bought a record for Jon on Ebay last night. The 7” of ‘Trees and Flowers’, which was one of THE records of our early years. If the bloody April Showers record wasn’t so damn expensive I would buy that for him as well. I don’t know if he still has a record player even, but what the heck.

Blogging from the Cavern (or at least writing from the Cavern), I kind of thought the zine convention was gonna be setting up at 11, so I’m here at 11.40 and no-one is around. Oh well. Got a decaff from the Boston and feel bad sitting in the Cavern drinking it, but whatcha gonna do? I don’t even know if they have decaff here, I’m sure they do but the Boston coffee is so nice. So duh. Morning spent cleaning the house and making some flyers and burning some Gossip CDs. I was awake at 6 again, head full of stuff. C was getting up at 7 anyway to go to Bournemouth to pick up her parents, so it didn’t matter much. I made some flyers to go with selling my stuff and invented some quotes for the ‘young and foolish’ one. My favourite was ‘strictly for wimps’ which I attributed to Kerrang. I also borrowed Nicola’s quote about me being ‘the Lester Bangs of the C86 generation’ but attributed it instead to the NME. Sorry Nicola… But the NME is more famous than you. At the moment.

The April Showers auction is already over a hundred dollars. A hundred dollars!! And its still not reached the reserve price. I thought the seller was just being cheeky, but I guess people are willing to spend that much. It seems crazy. I’m still not parting with my copy. Ever.

And yeah, I do remember Denim on Later with Jools Holland. Remember it well. I did have it on video for a while but I think it was taped over at some point in the past ten years or so. I am really bad about cataloguing what I have on video etc. Oh well. I do still have a Polaroid of Lawrence that I took off the telly from that performance though. For a long time it was framed on the wall next to one of Liz Taylor. Looked good. He wore mirrored aviator glasses as I recall. I would love the opportunity to spin some Denim at a show, but I don’t get that chance these days. No DJing opportunities… but then again I am too busy, so whatever.

We watched I Shot Andy Warhol last night. It wasn’t as good as I remember it being at the cinema when it came out. It felt really stilted and obvious this time around. Not good. Lili Taylor was kind of good, but Stephen Dorff really bugged me as Candy. And Andy was too … uh … cartoon Andy. Maybe that was the point. And I had it in my head that it was Luna who played as the Velvets, but of course it was Yo La Tengo, and actually that whole party scene really went on way too long, and Ondine was a bit of a pain, and was that girl in the silver dress and short hair really meant to be Edie? That was NOT how I picture Edie behaving. But yeah, whatever. So the movie wasn’t so great.

Mike and Meg and Harry have just arrived.

Fanzine convention at the Cavern tomorrow. I’m kind of dreading it because I shall be the old git in the corner with no idea. I made my ‘I wish I was unopopular’ fanzine, and packaged up twenty in nice plastic bags with the Shade Tree CD EP, but I know they won’t sell because they don’t have anything hip in them that the kids will know. Hell, there’s not even anything on the cover that gives a hint at what’s inside. I suppose I could do flyers, but I can’t be arsed. The lack of information adds to the intrigue, and intrigue is important. But what do I know? I also burned a dozen copies of the Gossip at the Cavern, and I’m going to sell those with all proceeds going into the Ladyfest coffers. I called the CD ‘Fuck Punk’ after the graffiti I photographed early this month. The graffiti is on the cover, and it’s pink. It looks kind of cool. I’d like to make ‘Fuck Punk’ badges too.

Thanks to the very wonderful Michael White for this.

Synthesisers In The Rain

Been listening to Denim a lot recently, specifically ‘Denim On Ice’. I remember when I first bought ‘Denim On Ice’. I only got it to mail to Jim Rao in the US, and when I listened to it before shipping it I hated it unreservedly. I thought it was an appalling joke. Now, I think it’s a stroke of genius, and it’s about time there was some kind of re-appraisal.

I also picked up a copy of ‘Summer Smash’ the other day. I was so excited when it arrived. I was nervous of playing it. It looks lovely, all bright yellow vinyl and all, and it’s such a genius pop single. It’s a tragedy it never got released. It would have been so wonderful to have it come out just after the Diana crash too; a delicious irony. It could have been like ‘God Save The Queen’ or something. Probably the ‘or something’, but heh.

Sitting listening to The Associates (Sulk), and thinking about my brother (he’s a big fan of Billy Mackenzie), wondering once again where he is and what he’s up to… Haven’t heard from him since, oh, the last time I posted about it all here back at the end of the summer, start of September maybe? Nothing except a Christmas card that pretty much said ‘hello’ and nothing else, which is fine of course, if only it was a punctuation mark instead of a whole paragraph/chapter in the story of our communications. His work email has been bouncing back since October, and all messages left on his mobile answerphone have gone ignored. And now his mobile phone is not connecting at all, and I’m fretting and thinking all kinds of dark thoughts, which perhaps says more about me than about him, but there you are. Not even sure then if he is still employed at his old job, although when phoning them a moment ago I at least did get put through to an extension. That it was another answerphone, and not his voice or name on the end didn’t assuage my fears particularly…

Part of me thinks, hell, I’m sure he has his reasons for cutting all connections to his family. They’re probably very valid reasons too, it’s just it would be good to at least know what they were.

Sorry, this is probably not the kind of thing I should be posting here, and I need to stop because my head hurts and my eyes are sore.

It’s not snowing.

Just spotted this on ebay. ‘Buy Now’ price of 155 bucks!?!? And I start to wonder if my rabid rantings over the years about this record have perhaps in some small part brought this about? I mean, if I’m honest I have never seen ANYone apart from Juniper Beri Beri fanzine write about April Showers, so, you know… And NO, it does not mean I will even consider parting with my beloved copy. That record will go to the grave with me. I’m gonna write it into my will…

In The Meantime Before Failure

Week, uh, whatever.

Not an auspicious start to the weekend. Got up too late, or rather lay too long in bed not asleep but with head full of ideas or more specifically, things I need to do with the weekend. As a result of this I was late getting out of the house and late arriving at the barbers and therefore found a huge queue waiting. So I figured, what the hell, another week might not make too much of a difference and anyway, its meant to get cold next week so perhaps having even less hair on my head would be a bad idea. And you know I don’t do hats. So then headed up through town to the Boston, where I am now, and although it’s fairly quiet, none of the sofas are free so I’m forced onto one of the wooden chairs and tapping away on a table rather than cosily on my knee. Oh well. I suppose I ought not to complain too much as it’s at least not raining. Also, C got email this morning announcing the imminent arrival of the Freaks and Geeks DVD collection. Yay! It looks like being a huge 8 DVD set, so it ain’t gonna be cheap. They seem to be taking advance orders for the ltd edition box set on the website, but this morning it appeared to be down, perhaps crashed under the strain of all the interested freaks and geeks desperate to pre-order. And unfortunately too it’s not scheduled for release until near the end of April. That means, like, a three month wait. A quarter of the year! Still, something to look forward to I guess.

More positives: I am so happy at the number of people who are keen to be involved in my geeky record label project. The Legend!, Clientele, July Skies, Lovejoy, Snowdrops, Playwrights, Jasmine Minks, Soft Set, Shade Tree, Anagram, and this morning an email from Roy Thirlwall from The Windmills saying he’d be more than happy to donate a track. This is so gratifying. I wish I had the money to do releases for all of them and more, but hey, at least I don’t need to worry about what I can put out for a long time. Speaking of which, I really do need to start getting the first one together. Time is not standing still. Oh, how time is not standing still…

Had a couple of emails from Mark Radcliffe yesterday. Not sure if its that Mark Radcliffe (as in the radio DJ and chum of ex-Creeper, Fall and Nightingale, Marc Reilly, aka ‘Lard’), and not that it matters, but hey… he was hoping to discover more about Paul Quinn, so if anyone can give us an update on Paul’s whereabouts etc these days, please get in touch and let us all know. Quinn of course is up there as one of the forgotten geniuses, and Mark reminded me about the ‘Phantoms and Archetypes’ album that I had forgotten existed, and which I would love to hear. So if anyone has a copy they can tape or burn for me that would be hugely appreciated. Mark’s email also reminded me of the time I wrote to Alan Horne. This was back in the start of the ‘90s, when Postcard was in its second phase. I was being cheeky and asked if he could spare some sleeves or posters to help in my record sleeve design project in school. His response was more than generous, with a heap of CDs, records, posters, flyers and those great fold out poster-brochures. I don’t know if the kids in school appreciated it, but I certainly did. Heavenly records were equally cool at that as well, as I recall, sending some massive St Etienne posters and the super-great Etienne fanclub CD. I think they also sent that little Heavenly bird badge that I found again last week whilst sorting through things in the geek lair.

And speaking of Postcard, was there ever actually a ‘Punk Rock Hotel’ movie? Or was that another of those mythic projects? And was there ever a visual record of that Quinn / Independent Group ‘Cheap Flights’ performance at the GFT in ’94? Ten years ago nearly! Sheesh. Or what about those Postcard Fin De Siecle nights? Or the ‘Suitcase’ or ‘Rapt Like A Brick in 16mm’ films? Were they even made? Or were they more imaginative ingredients in the always immensely creative Postcard catalogue? We need to know. We demand to know.

Anyway, I copied some of those old Postcard things for my fanzine ‘I wish I was unpopular’, which will go on public sale next weekend at the fanzine convention down the Cavern. I hate the fanzine already because its so out of date already and because it uses mostly things off Tangents and this blog. The thought of writing exclusive content for it seemed kind of weird, but maybe in hindsight I should have done just that. It does look quite nice though, with it’s photo of Lupe on the cover (thanks Gail!) and the Shade Tree CD EP slipped in the bag with it… I printed 20 copies and I doubt I’ll print more, unless there is demand, which I kind of doubt. It also felt strange, putting together this thing and it not being instantly available. I wonder if instant publishing through the web and new technologies has spoilt us? Do we value the physical artefact as much as we used to, and is this a good or a bad thing? How does it affect our perception of the value of art, in particular the written word? If we are becoming used to consuming the written word for free, does this mean we value writers and their art less?

So many questions, so little time to think of the answers. It’s ten thirty, my large decaff is finished. Time to head home.

Fuck me, this Oneida album is, if you will please excuse the random hippy exclamation, 'cosmic, man'. No, really, it is, I can't get it off the stereo. Played it when I got home this afternoon at brain pummelling volume because I was alone in the house and it sounded so fucking amazing. Fortunately you all have only one week before you find out for yourselves (assuming you're all not music journos who alreday have copies too, of course). Start countin' down those days, freaks.

For the Squarepusher fans though, I'm afraid I jumoed the gun rather, because Ultravisitor isn't out until the start of March. Sorry. I should pay more attention to press releases. Or not. There is, however, hope for those who can't wait that long for new 'Pusher product. Here's what the press release says:

"In anticipation of his forthcoming album Ultravisitor, and as an exclusive to the newly launched Warp Records MP3 download site, bleep.com, two previously unreleased Squarepusher tracks will be made available on 26 January 2004.

'Square Window', a devastating electronic ballad, and the acid frenzy of 'Talk About You And Me' are not included on Ultravisitor and can only be accessed as an MP3 download via bleep.com.

There will, however, be an extremely limited 12" pressing (which also includes the album title track, 'Ultravisitor') sold in indie shops and available through warpmart.com. "

I couldn't be arsed making the links active. Use your keyboard and type, you lazy git.

And look! I havent mentioned Apple in two days... oh shit.

I have to stop doing these things

Like Izzy, I too am:
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