unpopular

I’m the dummy

Wasn’t there a Saint Etienne track with a sample saying “I’m the dummy”? Or am I dreaming that? And if there is, I have no fucking clue where the sample comes from, though I bet I ought to. I am so stupid when it comes to things like that. I swear to god that my mind is like a goldfish's.

Like, I only just discovered that ‘I Love You, You Big Dummy’ was a Captain Beefheart song before it was a Magazine song. How many years did I not know that? Too many to be even remotely funny. But I don’t care anyway, because I always hated Captain Beefheart. I fully realise that is a sacrilegious statement to make, but who cares. In my world Captain Beefheart is one of those artists that people only pretend to like because it’s ‘difficult’ music and has developed a patina of unimpeachable ‘classic’ status.

And in my world ‘I Love You, You Big Dummy’ is a Magazine song. I don’t care about yours.

Dance Children Dance

Anyone around in London at the weekend and at a loose end on Saturday night could do a heck of a lot worse than head on down to the free Northern Soul night in the ballroom of the newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall. DJs on the night are Lois Wilson, the great Ady Croasdel and Bob Stanley. All part of Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown. The dancing starts at 10pm…

Dr Who sticker album

No-one has guessed my secret or lie yet. Except C knows because I told her in the car this morning. Oh, i just remembered there was another one on there that said "i have completed my Dr Who sticker album". Which i thought Liz might like. But that's not mine either...

Secrets and Lies

We have an exhibition of staff art work in our school at the moment. It will be the first public display of my ‘day in, day out’ video piece. I put in a couple of ‘going to London’ drawings too, and they look okay I guess. The best piece though is Cindy’s, which is a collection of postcards, on which she has asked staff to anonymously write either a secret or a lie. There are some great ones on there:

“I got married just to get back at someone”
“I yearn to meet someone special and settle down”
“I have never said ‘I love you’ and not meant it”
“I hate my job”
“I was once a lap dancer”
“I once dated a professional footballer. He wasn’t my type.”
“I hate kids”
“I faked playing a musical instrument in a school concert”

Everyone was of course trying to guess who wrote what. Can you guess which one is mine?

Sweet Sanity

I heard that our head of Science has been spending time photographing the sleeves of his vinyl albums. It is something I have often thought about doing, but it seems like such a huge undertaking. Then again, just doing it in small chunks would be the way to do it. Like one of those daily art projects. Anyway, thinking about that, I did a little light flicking through the collection last night. Wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, but I came to the Hurrah! records, and  just had to pull them out. I spent a moment reading the sleeve notes to the Way Ahead! live set that Esurient put out. What a great artefact that is. In so many ways. And yet it will be twenty years ago this August! And already over twenty five since that show was recorded. Two days after my birthday... I can only shudder at what I must have been doing that night.. I should definitely record that onto my computer sometime. Better watch your heads, indeed.

I also spent some moments just admiring the sleeve of the Boxed collection. That was a record that had a mythic quality even at the time. As much to do with Kevin and Matt’s writings as the music itself I guess, which is as it should be. I have the purple and pink sleeve, which was the later release. However I still have vivid memories of picking up the original album in the Glasgow Virgin store when it came out. I passed on it for some reason then, however, and chose the Creation compilations instead, as I recall.

Anyway, glancing over the sleeve, I noticed ‘Flowers’ on there, which I had not heard for so long. For some reason it did not appear on the Sound of Philadelphia collection that Rev-Ola put out. So I pulled out the disk and slipped it on the turntable. It sounded terrific, though I felt sad too for all kinds of reasons, mostly to do with remembering that article in The Same Sky, wasn’t it? The letter to Hurrah!? All those themes about following what were perceived as the wrong paths, making the wrong connections. So you know, all that reverberates still, after all this time. Some things are difficult to shake. Which ties into what Daniel was writing about Del Amitri, and I have been playing that first Del Amitri set again as a result of Dan’t words, and it does still sound magnificent. Sure, it is wordy, but as Dan says ‘what words!’.

you keep hanging up on my mind

We went to Lynton and Lynmouth on Saturday, ostensibly to see Mark Hibbett play at the LLAMA festival there. Now I had never seen Mark play live before, and I thoroughly enjoyed his set, despite the somewhat incongruous setting. Phil and Pam suggested that it would have been much better in a dark pub, and I don’t doubt that’s true. Nevertheless, I loved it. Maybe it does help to ‘get’ almost all of the cultural references that he throws into his songs, but then again maybe not, for I know of teenagers from foreign climes who love them as much as I do. And man, I coulda cried when he played ‘Billy Jones Is Dead’. I love that song so much.

Anyway, leafing through the programme for the festival and something caught my eye. Something about Wendy and Bonnie’s Genesis. On closer inspection it seemed that a collective including Jane Weaver and Chris Geddes were bringing Wendy Flowers over from the USA to perform (I assume) the whole of the Genesis set. Now I could not believe what I was seeing. Genesis is one of the great underground albums of the late ‘60s, and it blew my mind completely when I first heard it. It remains one of my most treasured records, even though I have only the Sundazed CD reissue. I am sure that people were looking at me strangely as I got overexcited at the prospect, but then some reality set in. For I do not really rate Jane Weaver, and although wee Chris is cool, and Wendy Flowers would no doubt still sound heavenly, could I really trust that the perfection of hearing the record in my own context of the darkened room late at night would not be spoiled? After all, it would be a Sunday afternoon on a patch of grass surrounded by hippies and other unsavoury types. And really, how could that compete with my dreams?

So my dream of the 18 and 15 year old Wendy and Bonnie remains intact. And Genesis still sounds like one of the most perfect albums ever made.

Interesting to read John Carney write about Julie Christie being our patron saint back at that point in the ‘80s, and the Byrds, Lovin’ Spoonful and Kinks collections being the most played records. I remember when my own life felt the same way, though being in Troon meant it was of course several years after it had been all the London rage. I’d been thinking about Julie Christie recently though, partly through listening to Stephen Duffy’s song and partly from re-reading The Levels.

Listening to Duffy sing those lines: “ you remind me of Julie Christie in Billy Liar” I started to think, okay, that’s all very fine and wonderful, but imagine a girl singing “you remind me of Billy in Billy Liar”. Maybe not quite so pleasant. I dunno. And it struck me that Billy in The Levels and Billy Liar are not a million miles apart, and that Muriel is Liz, catching that train to London. Only this time from Taunton and not Manchester. And that Billy could choose to join her, but of course does not. Cannot, for all kinds of reasons.

Apparently Peter Benson is living in Exeter again. Perhaps I should ask him about that… And then again, perhaps not.

God Save The Clientele

“I’ve got to go; its nearly morning, though leaving you will break my heart.
Don’t be afraid of dreams of leaving - remember they are only dreams.
They have no meaning in the sunlight. Just the same as you and me.

Goodnight my angel of the dark…”

I spent most of Thursday night, and a great deal of my train travels yesterday listening to the new Clientele album. Some have said that they have yet to fall in love with it, but I was head over heels in moments. Not least because of the lush baroque production, but also because, simply, it contains some of the most exquisite, heartbreaking songs that you will ever hear. I swear to god, I had ‘Dreams of Leaving’ on an endless loop for such a long time. That and ‘The Queen of Seville’ have had me in raptures of sadness. Never were there such collisions of melancholy, love and longing in such perfect sonic settings. Well, maybe the Millennium’s ‘The Ways I Love You’ might push them close. But that’s so perfect, for The Clientele are surely crafting their own 21st Century equivalent of the magical soft psychedelia that those West Coast geniuses were making in the ‘60s.

God Save The Clientele, indeed.

Come to Milton Keynes

Or don’t, actually. What was that line in the Style Council song? “May I slit my wrists tonight?” I can see what Weller was getting at… I have been spending my night listening to the new Clientele album, that old Velvet Crush set, drinking wine and writing nonsense. Man, that Clientele album is achingly beautiful. ‘The Queen of Seville’ just tears open my heart. It’s going to be a lonely, lonely day indeed.

Choo Choo Train

Oh, and whilst we are on the topic of The Box Tops, I always assumed that Paulie Chastain and Ric Menck named their group after the Box Tops tune. Sure, there were lots of songs called ‘Choo Choo Train’ and it could have come from a million and one other places, but it made so much sense that it was a nod to Box Tops. I’ve never bothered to find out if that was really the case though. And don’t forget of course that Menck sang a beautiful cover of the Box Tops’ ‘Rollin’ In My Sleep’ on the Velvet Crush Soft Sounds set in 2002.