unpopular

Sketches for Summer

I recall some years ago I made something of a song and dance about never going back to the Boston Tea Party because the staff were really rude. Well, I guess we all know by now that you should never say ‘never’. Because the last few days I’ve been back there and enjoyed it greatly. The staff have all been very pleasant, and the coffee is damn fine. The Brazilian offering is particularly grand. That’ll be an extra large, of course.

I’ve had my sketchbook with me too, and been enjoying the feel of a pen between my fingers again. I put a few on my Flickr pages.

Actually I’ve been uploading a load of stuff to Flickr the last few days. A ton of drawings and art from the past few years, and then this morning I scanned and uploaded covers of old mix tapes. I love those old mixes with the tracing paper packaging. The way the paper has yellowed slightly at the creases is lovely, and the old typewriter text looks so archaic, it’s fabulous. Much better than my childish looking writing, anyway… Some of the tracklists are terrific too. Others are slightly embarrassing, but that’s the nature of the beast. I may upload CD mixes in the next few days after trawling my hard drive for artwork.

Anyway, tonight is Exeter Goes Pop! again, and I have my FAC playlist all ready to go:

Sketch For Summer - The Durutti Column
Looking From A Hilltop - Section 25
Ufo - ESG
Do The Du - A Certain Ratio
Temptation - New Order
Militia - Stockholm Monsters
Tart Tart - Happy Mondays
What's The World - James
When It All Comes Down - Miaow
Gentle Sound - The Railway Children
Gruesome Castle - The Wake
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division

Waverley

I have a Waverley pen! The Brogues rocks! Gosh, this is one of the sweetest things anyone has ever sent me :)

Join The Dots

Strange how coincidences trip along in life, isn’t it? Like: Walking through unknown streets in Marylebone and Paddington, discovering that The Barley Mow pub has closed down and deciding that the next pub that appears will be the one to give you sustenance. The Harcourt Arms appears out of the August twilight, looking for all the world like a typical English pub; nice wooden frontage, leaded windows, pleasantly reserved looking. Inside it looks okay. A few tables, some blokes having a quiet pint. And then you spot a huge poster for The Seventh Seal taped over a Victorian mirror. There are some framed photos of Ronnie Peterson at the end of the bar, and a chalked sign advertising pear cider. Then you catch a couple of the words that the bar staff are saying to each other in a language that’s oddly familiar and foreign at the same time and you realise that of all the pubs in all of London, you have to walk into the Swedish one…

And then, looking out the window as you down your beer, you spot a sign saying ‘Shillibeer Street’ and you wonder whatever did become of The Playwrights and Ben Shillabeer, little realising that at the same moment in Bristol, Ben was very possibly packing up an envelope with the ‘demos and studio scraps’ of his new solo identity as The Gloaming, and taping a label on the front with your address on…

Well, anyway, that envelope arrived today. And very fine those solo demos sound too. It’s all instrumental; a mixture of guitars, pianos, Rhodes, melodica, glockenspiel, field recordings and a whole host of other things besides. The feel is very similar to the lower-key moments of The Playwrights, and thank goodness for that, because if ever there was a criminally underrated and unrecognised group of the past five years it was the Playwrights. As much the fault of people like me for not making more of a fuss of them whilst they existed I suppose, but whatever… In many ways the spirit and sound of The Playwrights is alive and well in You And The Atom Bomb, whose new album Ben also sent me a copy of. “Bring me the head of You And The Atom Bomb” they sing at the start of ‘Heads and Tails’, before blasting off on a terrific tangent of explosive freaky dancing with guitars and typewriters clashing in glorious abandonment. Didn’t we once use ‘angular’ to describe this kind of marvellous racket? Well, I guess it’s time to get the protractors out again.

But yes, to get back to The Gloaming: these recordings really do sound gorgeous, and that badgers face mask Ben wears looks amazing. I hope there is a badge with that image on. If there is not one yet, there should be. These things are important. And didn’t The Jasmine Minks sing once about slipping into your badgers skin?

Well, in another leap of connection, a message from John Carney arrived at the same time as the envelope from Ben, in which he said that his favourite record of the moment was by The Studio. Now I love that West Coast set of theirs, and I hear a distinct similarity between the instrumental tracks and the feel of those Gloaming recordings. Not that The Gloaming songs have any of that dubby 99 label angle going on, but still, there is an abstract ache in there that seems to be shared. Or maybe I’m just projecting. Though that’s the whole point of the Pop experience though, so who cares anyway.

But yes, West Coast, and the ‘Life’s A Beach!’ single are excellent. And have you heard the lovely Prins Thomas mix of that? Reminds me of A Man Called Adam, and incidentally, did I mention how wonderful it was to walk into my favourite vegetarian restaurant in London and hear an old AMC track on the sound system?

Oh yeah, to get back round to the start again, and like you hadn’t already guessed: The Studio are Swedish…

I’ve spent most of today scanning sketchbooks and drawings, then uploading and organizing them on my Flickr site. It’s easy to forget how much we create sometimes. All sparked off by the new series of ‘Going To London’ drawings that I did on Friday. I’d had this lovely ‘Turner’s Skies Sketchbook’ for ages, lying around unused. I think Jenny gave me it as a Christmas or birthday present. Anyway, it has lovely wide and thin pages; just the thing for doing my moving train drawings on. I’d not drawn for ages and it felt good. I was even quite pleased with some of the end results…

So then I started looking through some drawers and started pulling out sketchbooks, and found a bunch of other ‘Going to’ drawings from over the years. There’s another book with some I made on the route between Brighton and London which I have not scanned yet. I had forgotten all about those, and they look really nice; a bit different because I used a spindly (0.25) Rotring pen.

Anyway, hopefully the embedded slideshow works…

I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone

“I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.” Indeed.

You can blame Daniel Handler and his August playlist for this one. I often forget how much I love people. No really, I do. All the bloody time.

Back in what feels like the mists of time I heard people talking about Daniel on the Stephinsongs mailing list. If ‘hearing’ is the right word for reading messages on a computer screen… Well, whatever. It would have been not long after the first Series of Unfortunate Events books was published, and I became a fan immediately. And then of course I read The Basic Eight and I swear that’s still one of my favourite books of all time. I should read it again. But I want to finish these Martin Beck books, and I had a notion to re-read Absolute Beginners, and if I do THAT I’ll want to read the whole London Novels collection, and…. and… well that’s how these things go. And then if I did all of that you see I’d have forgotten about Daniel Handler again and how much I love him. See how easy it is? Out of sight, out of mind. Or out of heart. Or something like that anyway. You know how it goes.

Same with John Darnielle and the Mountain Goats. Go on, put a gun to my head. Ask me who my favourite groups and songwriters are. John and his Mountain Goats are right up there, I swear to God.

So now I’m ploughing through all my Mountain Goats records. It’s a fine, fine prospect for a day when the rain is smirring through the trees and the flowers in the garden droop heavy and forlorn.

Photos from the London visit are here. And here. Doesn’t Sarah Action Biker look like Sandy Shaw? Or is it just me?

Thursday Feels Fine

For which my slot may well be filled with a selection of Factory fun in remembrance of Tony Wilson. Orlando meanwhile promises to play loud post-punk emo-core, whilst Martijn and Dimitra will no doubt delight with something light and fluffy.

Come and say hello.

Stumble

Chris asked me ages ago for a copy of the Emily songs from their ‘Stumble’ single. I thought I had done so, but clearly hadn’t. So here they are… for a limited time only. They do sound glorious.

Radio Radio

I was delighted to get an email recently from Leigh in Australia. We had been in touch a few years ago and then drifted away, as you do. But now she’s back and doing a super groovy new radio show. Yay! And she wants me to be involved! Double Yay! It sounds like we get to talk about Pop and Nonsense for a quarter hour or so once a month and then it all goes out on the airwaves to the Sydney populace and on the interweb thingy to The Rest Of The World. It’s all very exciting. It will be my first ‘proper’ radio experience. Apologies in advance if I end up mumbling and talking shite…

The Sound Of Rain

I’m sure most of you are aware that Slumberland is one of the greatest small labels ever. Such a great track record, and terrific to see Mike back and excited about Pop again, what with The Lodger album and that How 7” which I am excited about hearing. And I am so excited about going to see The Lodger at the end of September. I keep reading people talking about the album and saying how it’s the ‘sleeper’ / ‘word of mouth’ album of the summer. Well, that’s good… “word’s got out”.

Anyway, one of the neat ‘extras’ on the new Slumberland website is the podcast feature, and I’m thrilled to see that the current one has been supplied by the always entertaining Brogues of Glasgow Town. A fine, fine mix of tunes he’s selected too. And a delightful reference to paddling on Troon beach in his intro to boot! Bloody marvellous. Subscribe here or download there.