unpopular

this is what happens when a great love crashes

Sunset - 1989, originally uploaded by unpop.

The sun slid down behind the tower

Sunset See My Sadness - The Tokens
Canadian Sunset - Liz Damon's Orient Express
10,000 Sunsets - Hearts And Flowers
Sunset Studies - Augie March
Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks
Sunset City - The Magnetic Fields
Sunset Rising - John Foxx
Sunset Now - Heaven 17
Sunset Safety Glass - Bob Mould
Sunset Dawn - Spirea X
Saturday Sunset - Drugstore
Orange Sunset - Mecca Normal
Sunsets At Her Window - Comet Gain
Two Sunsets - Pastels/Tenniscoats
Sunset Soon Forgotten - Iron and Wine
Sunset - Dot Allison

The Suburbs Are Killing Us?

So the London Nobody Sings project speeds in for a marvellous sprint finish. Has it really been a year? I guess it has. Kevin wraps up his marvellous, magical tour with a circuit of Chiselehurst High Street and the Hong Kong Garden takeaway as captured so wonderfully by Siouxsie And The Banshees. I taught a girl called Siouxsie a few years back. Always wanted to meet her parents at a parents’ evening to see if they were Punks or Goths, but they never came. Shame.

I used to love Siouxsie And The Banshees. I was far too hopeless to have any of the first records but ‘Once Upon A Time’ was one of my first treasured albums. 1981. I would have been 14 or 15. I remember that Paul Morley’s sleevenotes were are as influential as the music. That line about being scratched? If I have paraphrased that line once I have done so a million times.

Kevin ruminates on the importance of sweet suburbia to the Siouxsie story. The Bromley contingent. Part of the punk mythology. I’m intrigued by the notion of suburbia. I can never decide if I grew up in the suburbs or just in some middle class housing estate in a seaside town. Perhaps neither. Perhaps both. Certainly these days I think it is harder to define where suburbia begins or ends. It as much a construct of the mind as of geography. Perhaps it always was.

I do recall being drawn, via Kevin again, into Shena Mackay’s glorious tales of suburbia and Patrice Chaplin’s evocative tales of escape in Albany Park. Before that I suppose that there was always something of the suburbs in Jane Gardam’s stories which I adored unreservedly. Living on the edges of everything. Out of touch, and delightedly so. Being able to hide, as Kevin says.

Foxtrot Echo Lima Tango

Foxtrot Echo Lima Tango - Felt fanzine, originally uploaded by unpop.

My copy of the Felt fanzine/book arrived last week. It is even more fantastic than I had dared hope, both in appearance and content. If you have not already picked it up then may I direct you here and tell you that it may be the best value for a tenner you'll get all year.

My previously unpublished 2006 interview with Lawrence nestles in there and if I may humbly suggest, it is well worth reading. That very nice Mr Petridis chap said it was "BRILLIANT". No really, he did! He added that "The idea that Middle Of The Road is "a protest song about Primal Scream" made me HOWL with laughter."

So really, what more encouragement do you need?!

Flood of Vampires

Occultation releases, originally uploaded by unpop.

I posted about the imminent release of these two beauties several weeks ago. If you followed my advice and pre-ordered then you should have had these gorgeously packaged artefacts drop through your letterbox a few days back, and will no doubt have been delighting in them ever since. If you didn't follow my advice then I demand to know why not, and direct you once more to the Occultation on-line store where you can pick yourself a couple of the finest releases you will hear all year.

All I Need Is Everything

After a Fullarton Wheelers' 10 mile TT - summer 1984, originally uploaded by unpop.

“Bidon!”
A hand and a laugh in the air. Five boys on bikes. Nothing much in common except a whisper thin belief in themselves and the bonds that brought them together.
“Allez! Allez!”

So together they rode, each secretly playing out the roles of the faces they glimpsed frozen in the inky pages of The Comic; the faces they pinned on bedroom walls beside Madness and Morrissey. Hinault, Maertens, Van Impe, Moser, Zoetemelk, Saronni. Names filled with European magic. In moments too they thought of Kelly, Roche and Millar: the Celtic soul brothers ploughing their solitary ways through the peloton towards legend. The strong devoted, no less.

Five boys on bikes on a summer habble. Sprinting for road signs, no holds barred. Imaginary primes at the top of each gentle rise, no quarter given. Double points on any real hill. The illusion of a polka-dot maillot on someone’s shoulders, or a maglia verde if they were talking Italian. For whilst no-one enjoyed language lessons in school, out on the road it was different. Peloton, casquette, musette, maglia, maillot, bidon. Bella, bella.

Naturally it was important to dress the part. Chris wore the Splendor of Criquielion, Robert in Saronni’s Del Tongo. Andy sported the Gis of Moser whilst Nick went for Anderson’s Panasonic. Marc meanwhile favoured the Mondrian themed La Vie Claire of Hinault. A modernist classic, as he would tell anyone close enough to listen. Yet although each wore a different jersey, they thought of themselves as a team, a gang, a grupetto. The Velo. They were simply The Velo.

So The Velo rode the coast as they often did, but for once dropped down through the tree lined avenues to the castle on the cliffs. Roosevelt and Churchill met there in the second war, so it was said, and Robert insisted there were ghosts in the old mill. Bunny-hopping speed bumps, they passed cars on the left and right. An old gentleman soaked in the sun’s warmth on a felled tree trunk and Chris cried “Bonjour Monsieur!” as they passed. Andy, at the back of the bunch, saw a walking stick raised in a bemused returned salute. A gaggle of teen girls stood waiting for parents, bored in the car-park. “Ca va?!” called Marc. Banal glares bounced back at them and Marc looked to his friends. “Les mademoiselles - elles sont tres, tres froid.” he shouted, and Robert responded with his best Gallic shrug.

They soft pedalled around to the castle entrance, but its imposing facade held no interest. Three riders took quick drinks whilst the other two held track stands between the cream stone pillars of the elegant gateway. The sun continued to slide through the sky towards Arran in the west as the vapour trails of trans-atlantic airplanes drew chalk lines on the blue.

A call went up.
“Alors!”
“Allez, allez!”

A sprint back up the road and more miles in their legs. Further from home then eventually switching back: a return to the girls of summer and the illusion of love. Five boys on bikes with nothing much in common except a whisper thin belief in themselves and memories that momentarily brought them together.

Dogs, ducks and donkeys

Thorverton Fair 2010-8, originally uploaded by unpop.

This weekend is the Thorverton village fair, whose advertising for the past month has promised 'Dogs. Ducks. Donkeys.' You can see why we would have been so keen to go. So yesterday afternoon was spent in the sunshine out at a field in Raddon watching dogs herding ducks, dogs leaping through flaming hoops and donkeys, erm, standing around in their slightly forlorn donkey way. There was also a falconry display which was somewhat underwhelming as the falcon flew off into the distance, never to return... The displays of vintage tractors, motorcycles and cars made up for that, however. I've got lots of other photos here if you fancy a look, including some nice tractor and bike badges.

Angelic Swells

Yes, yes, I am sure you are all way ahead of me here, but I have been thrilling to the sounds of Neverever just lately. Thanks to Everett for the nod and the wink over on his blog, and to Slumberland for releasing the album of course. I will admit to having fallen behind the curve with new releases, artists, whatever, and admit too to having been singularly disinterested in much of what I think I am meant to like (can’t for the life of me get even moderately interested in Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls etc) but ooh, Neverever, like Best Coast, do make me come over all shivery. And as Kevin has commented, they do make one want to go and dig out those Slumber Party records (also Aislers Set) but that probably just shows our age. I understand there are ‘formal connections’ to The Royal We and I know that will thrill some people. For me though Neverever are miles above The Royal We, who are another group whose appeal I never quite understood. Perhaps in twenty years time I will realise the errors of my ways, but frankly life is too short to worry about such things, isn’t it? Let’s just enjoy the moment of now, filled to the brim with the sound of Neverever.

Scandinavian Blonde

 
Bicycles? Check. Classy ‘50s/‘60s retro fashion? Check. Fetching Swedish blonde? Check. 

Norwegian photographer Tom Tveitan has been shooting Swedish cycling star Emma Johansson, the results of which can be seen on his blog. And although I am a tiny bit unconvinced by his exposures and developing in a few places, there are some truly terrific shots in there.

Frida Hyvönen - 'Scandinavian Blonde'


 

Yelverton Picnic

garden house june 2010-1, originally uploaded by unpop.

More Half Term fun and frolics - another trip to the Garden House in Yelverton and a picnic on what I always thought was a common but turns out to be an old WW2 airfield. We went to see the wisteria, and although I needed C to point out what wisteria actually was, I had to agree that it was very pretty.

Cub - 'A Picnic'
The Strange Fruit Project - 'In The Garden'

Race with the wind

Exeter Tour Series 2010-10, originally uploaded by unpop.

It was the Exeter round of the city centre Tour Series last night. Last year I was laid up for the entire half term holiday with a particularly virulent stomach bug and missed the race (except on the telly) so I was determined to get out and watch it this year. Now even I have to admit that cycling (even circuit racing like this) is not the most exciting of things to watch in the flesh, as it were. At least on the telly you get to see them more than once every few minutes. Perhaps this is true of most sports though. Perhaps television has robbed us of the enjoyment of real, live sport. I'll let someone who really cares about telly and/or sport ponder that one.

Anyway, the evening sunshine and the sight and sound of shiny bicycles (and possibly the sight of shiny shaved legs) was pleasant enough, as my photos hopefully illustrate. Plus there was a crash very close to where we were standing so we are hoping we will make it onto the telly as concerned bystanders (Seven o-clock, ITV 4 tonight. Set your Sky box and/or video/DVD/computer/whateverthehell...)

The Robbs - 'Race With The Wind'

If you fancy a mix of bicycle songs to accompany this post you should check out this already ancient one.