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Posted at 17:21 in this drawing was made whilst listening to... | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Another Pants Yell! badge. Yay! Andrew sent this one several years ago, probably with a copy of the Songs For Siblings album. He also very kindly sent some of the hand screened posters he did for Pants Yell shows, including one with Jens Lekman. I really need to get those framed sometime and hung somewhere around the house. They really are great.
Posted at 21:21 in badges | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 17:21 in this drawing was made whilst listening to... | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I admit that I fell somewhat out of touch with the Achewood universe in 2007, and that was a shame because when I do drop by it more often than not raises my spirits considerably. This badge is from one of the sets that I bought a few years ago, probably around the time I picked up the signed screenprint I have hanging on the wall of the Geek Lair (in between two Craig Thompson posters). Mine is 42/50 and it's signed by Chris and dated January 2005. So nearly three years ago now. Where does the time go?
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Posted at 17:19 in this drawing was made whilst listening to... | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 17:19 in this drawing was made whilst listening to... | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
In the light of last night’s ever so slightly tipsy post about the Poems album, I was having a peek in the Tangents archive. I was looking for something about Friends Again that I was sure I had written, and sure enough, there it was, beaming in from nearly six years ago. Reading the whole piece through I was struck by a few things. One was the way in which we (okay, in which I) recycle the same themes and thoughts or even the same content. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s a manifestation of the Pop experience; the obsession with specific moments and the value of formula etc. Of course it’s more likely just lack of imagination, but whatever… Anyway, in that piece there is something on the greatness of the early Del Amitri, a brief froth of excitement about the Orchids and oh look, that story about John Darnielle waking me up with a phone call to enthuse about Stockholm Monsters that I trotted out just the other month for my radio show slot for Leigh. It feels odd reading about my then re-found obsession with Mountain Goats, for they have become one of the touchstone reference points in certain circles this past year or two. The old Dave Van Ronk reference in the piece made me smile too, for I have been playing some of his old tunes again recently, fired up by the inclusion of the fabulous ‘Tantric Mantra’ on my 70 Seconds Or Less mix. Of course it’s still the infamous ‘Last Call’ that makes me smile the most, with its fine connection to Lawrence Block’s brilliant When The Sacred Gin Mill Closes.
Something else that struck me reading that piece was the little review of the White Stripes at the end. It’s easy to forget how exciting those early White Stripes records were. De Stijl is still my favourite, if only for the fact that it is dedicated to Gerrit Rietveld. I mean, who else has dedicated an album to an architect/furniture designer? The fact that it is dedicated to possibly my favourite designer only adds to the appeal. Certainly Rietveld is responsible for my favourite house and chair. I can still remember the silly thrill of seeing the Schroeder House in the flesh for the first time, stuck on the end of a brick terrace like something beamed in from the future. It still looks that way.
I still surprise myself on occasion when I think about architecture. Not that I regret anything about bailing out of that course all those years ago, or indeed never having used my degree specialism, but still, just occasionally I do get wrapped up in the notion of space and form and all those kinds of things. Usually it’s when an episode of Grand Designs crops up on the telly and I get all cross at people not doing things properly.Or at least the way I would have done them…
Now, I wonder if I still have those old sketchbooks with the photos of the little card models I made of Rietveld furniture in?
Posted at 12:16 in General Nonsense, Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
There have been so many great records, both old and new, this year. Everett was writing in Plan B about how the salvaged greats from the 1980s were so vital to him, and for sure the likes of Pylon and the Young Marble Giants collections were so special. I have particularly fond memories of listening to the Colossal Youth reissue, wandering strange (yet strangely familiar) streets in the late July sunshine. Or sitting in a circle of trees, gazing at the pristine sky, watching bicycles float past from the corner of my eye, all the while with Alison Statton whispering gentle daydreams in my ears.
And speaking of Alison Statton, it’s nice to see Krister effusing about the Pants Yell! Album over on his blog. He’s spot on, of course, and for sure that album has been one of my most played in recent weeks, up there with the Burial and Distance records. I might even summon the courage to write about it myself sometime. I just can’t help thinking I’d never do it justice though. It really is that great.
What I could write about, though, is the Young America album by The Poems. Now I had heard about the group a lot this past year or so and they had become almost like a mythic entity. People whispered a word here, breathed a rumour there. It was almost a disappointment to realise that they really did exist, and that a record was available. But what a record. Krister talks about the impact of Camera Obscura’s Underachievers Please Try Harder set some four years ago, and yes, there’s certainly something of a Camera Obscura feel to the Poems sound. Which is to say that it sounds like the best Pop always sounds.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise though, because Robert Hodgens always did have a wonderful way with a Pop song. Now I know there are those who never really rated The Bluebells, considering them second string Postcard wannabes. I never quite understood that though. I always loved the Bluebells, and the fact that some of the hipsters took the piss only made me love them more (I mean, sure, I laughed at that bit in Juniper Beri Beri about analysing the lyrics to ‘Cath’, but it never stopped me loving that song to pieces).
It never bothered me that The Bluebells were on London Records, as deeply unfashionable as that may have been at the time. They had great songs, they wore cool sunglasses and had sleeves with artwork by Fraser Taylor of The Cloth. As did Friends Again, but that’s another story. It was probably the Glasgow School Of Art connection that did it for me, just as it did with Strawberry Switchblade. Those little things meant so much to me.
Some maintain that the Bluebells suffered from bad producers but again it never bothered me. Yes, you could say that some of the productions were tinny eighties efforts, but that was the context, to an extent. And I never did bother too much with that kind of thing anyway. Those Bluebells records just happened to be a huge part of our youth, playing out so often in the depths of our hedonistic abandon; the soundtracks for hopelessly unrequited love affairs that evaporated in the warm summer nights of 1983 and 1984.
Of course The Bluebells had the last laugh when a car advert resurrected ‘Young at Heart’ and propelled it to the top of the UK Charts, but even that was nearly fifteen years ago now. And anyway, did you know that the flip of that single, the heart achingly beautiful ‘Tender Mercy’ is one of my favourite songs by anyone, ever?
All of which is to say that I’m really delighted to be digging another Robert Hodgens group in The Poems.
And then there is Bobby Paterson, who I understand used to be in Love And Money, and who also produced the seminal Primal Scream moment ‘Velocity Girl’. I’ll admit now that for a brief moment I also loved Love and Money, though it was largely due to my following James Grant after the split of my beloved Friends Again. I can barely remember any of their records now though. ‘Candybar Express’ was the first single, was it not? In my memory I now have them down in the depths with the likes of Deacon Blue, but perhaps I am being unduly cruel. I suspect it’s fair to say, however, that Chris Thomson’s Bathers made a more lasting impact that Love and Money, and even if I never quite warmed to his later records, the Bathers’ debut Unusual Places To Die is still considered a minor classic round these parts. Well, within these four walls, anyway. Coincidentally, the album was twenty years old this year, yet remains unavailable. She plays like Tom Verlaine, indeed…
All of which is very well, of course, but what of The Poems? Well, you know, I like to think that if me and my friends were eighteen now, we’d be sitting in Jon’s room late at night, surrounded by emptied cider bottles, some of us in love with Beauty Queens, others with Beat angels, but each of us in thrall to the sound of The Poems. The songs would be reaching deep into our fragile hearts and would be wrapping tinsel round our spines. Tickling, tingling, the sensation of ruffled hearts seeping soft smiles; empty eyes laughing at the ailing alliteration and caring not a jot. Trailing to the village church yard in the dead of night, past the castle’s shadow, marvelling at the hole around the moon and wondering what the lips that haunted our reveries might taste like.
I mean, really, what more do you need to know?
Posted at 21:50 in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)