unpopular

Do you know something that I don’t know?

I did some ironing this afternoon. Five shirts all crisp(ish) and ready for the week ahead. Now I don’t really mind ironing too much. It is always a fine excuse to listen to some music. Today I span the ‘Shouting At Wildlife’ set by Kid Canaveral. It brought a creeping grin to my face.

I know I am late to the party on Kid Canaveral, and even though I downloaded the excellently titled ‘You Only Went Out To Get Drunk Last Night’ much earlier in the year it’s brilliance did not really hit me until yesterday. Or, at least, if it had hit me earlier in the year I’d forgotten all about it until yesterday... Which is entirely possible.

So today I snagged myself a copy of the album and gosh, it really is insanely catchy isn’t it? You will no doubt have already picked up on the free download of ‘Good Morning’ (sample lyric: “I wanted a drink, I wanted a dance, I wanted to love you, I wanted a romance...” yum) and the already several years old ‘Smash Hits’ (sample lyric: “When I tell you it doesn’t matter, you tell me that she like The McFly and you like Erase Errata...”)

But did you know that the rest of the set is equally spectacular? It is.

Now listening to the album had me thinking several things, but the most vital of those was this: When I was 17 or 18 or thereabout I wrote a wee book for my friends. It was a post-modern masterpiece that thinly fictionalised the exploits of five teenage cycling friends. Okay, so the the ‘masterpiece’ line is pushing it a bit, but you get the idea. The point is that there was an imaginary pop group in that book and in my addled memory (the manuscript to the book being long-since tossed on the pyre of exasperated youth and unrequited love) Kid Canaveral come closest to sounding how I imagined that group to sound. Which is to say they sound like falling over oneself in hysterical lust for the boy and the girl cycling past like Jenny Nowhere; that they sound like London Pride kisses and cheap cider crushes; that they sound like Buzzcocks sporting Undertones badges and playing ‘Wednesday Week’ in a bedroom of Ronettes fans. Which, in our daydreams, is exactly what we were and what we pray we always remain.

Halloween

, originally uploaded by unpop.

dance to the skeleton hand

the pictures on my wall

the pictures on my wall 10, originally uploaded by unpop.

Eddie and Ernie - 'Hiding In The Shadows'

Re-conditioned Appliance

I’ve just had an email drop into my inbox from James Brooks, erstwhile member of Exeter’s finest post-rock outfit Appliance. Now long-time readers of this blog and of my deceased Tangents site may know of my involvement with the Appliance crew through designing and hosting their websites throughout the years of their activity, from their early EPs through to their time at the Mute label. They sensibly avoided becoming identified as a ‘local’ group by playing relatively rarely around the Exeter ‘scene’, yet every time they did  their class shone through.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that today sees the release of the three CD ‘Re-Conditioned’ set of Peel Sessions, B-sides and early EPs on the RROOPP label. I've just ordered my copy and suggest you do the same. Here’s the skinny from James:

This autumn, post-punk band Appliance release an epic 44 track, 3-CD compilation of Peel Sessions, B-sides and early EPs entitled ‘Re-conditioned’ - their first release since 2003‘s ‘Are You Earthed’ album.

The album brings together many of the band’s best moments in one package. CD1 features the four Peel Sessions that ware recorded at the BBC Maida Vale studios between 1999 and 2002. This complete set of sessions includes a hypnotic early version of Food Music which featured in John Peers Festive 50. in 1999. as well as previously unreleased track, ‘Electra’ 

CD 2 compiles unpolished and unheard demos, B-sides, and other rarities spanning the six years of the band, from low- fl beginnings to multilayered productions. And CD3 assembles the band’s critically acclaimed three EP’s - two of which are available on CD for the first time - originally released before signing to Mute Records in 1999.

'Re-conditioned’ highlights Appliance’s interest in experimentation and repetition, combined with a desire to produce first-class melodic songs. Throughout the compilation the band’s instrumentation approach vanes from the original guitar, drums and bass set up, but the results are consistently inventive.

Tropicalies

Dawlish, originally uploaded by unpop.

Alternatively, it's just Dawlish in the Autumn sunshine...

Youth Sports: Tropicalies

 

Back, back, further back...

These two photographs by John Bulmer were amongst a collection featured today on the How To Be A Retronaut site. They resonated with me for two reasons in particular, both to do with a sense of personal history. The shot above is from 1965, the year before my own birth, and is of the kind of Yorkshire I imagine my father was so determined to leave (and by 1965 indeed he had). I have heard him speak of that determination many times, yet it is only when seeing these kinds of images that it starts to even begin to fully make sense. And of course this is taking nothing away from the proud warmth of those miners, either in the photographs or in my own family history: it’s just that in these images l can more fully understand my father's determination to find something else in the world. 

The second shot from 1977 pictures an England from my own childhood. Not that I grew up in an environment anything like the Manchester in the photograph, but still, it gives some context to times that we all too often allow to be cloaked in rose-tinted nostalgia. I'm not sure that we were particularly aware of this kind of Britain in 1977, despite John Bulmer's work for the Sunday Times. Perhaps I was just far too young to notice it of course, but nevertheless it remains true, surely, that this kind of reality is not one widely pedalled in the nostalgia business. Even ‘Life On Mars’ and ‘Control' struggled to truly capture this kind of strange wasteland.

What images will people look back on as capturing some essence of 2010? And will those images evoke a world as alien as these two do? 

1965 - The Kinks: See My Friends' (BBC Session) 
1977- Buzzcocks: Boredom' 

Gunning the works

It’s a funny old world, isn’t it? I sat down to a meeting the other day for a research project looking at using mobile technologies in schools and the chap next to me turned and said ‘ah, you must be Alistair Fitchett. I know all about you. I read your blog.’ And no, not my education tinted blog but this one. My unpopular one. The one that comes up as number one when you type ‘unpopular’ into Google (as an aside, does this mean that I am officially the most unpopular person on the Internet? What a thrilling accolade that is!). Magic.

Unfortunately he had to rush off before the end of the meeting and I didn't get chance to quiz him, but he did mention that he stumbled here on a search for something about Blue Aeroplanes. Now I don’t know about you, but I find it remarkably comforting that the Headteacher of a primary school should be a fan of Blue Aeroplanes. And that they should have bought a Granite Shore record. I rather suspect that Mr Gove would rather we were all reading Dryden, but I’ll go for Gerard Langley and Nick Halliwell any day.

Blue Aeroplanes: ‘Gunning The Works’

 

Paperfangs

An invitation to listen to Finland’s Paperfangs dropped into my inbox the other day. Now I will admit that I by-pass a fair amount of such invitations. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that there are only so many hours in a day and to be frank I’m getting on a bit and need some peace and quiet of an evening so listening to new music on the off-chance it might be vaguely interesting is not particularly high up on my list of priorities. Paperfangs though made it through. Why? I think it was the fact that they were called Paperfangs. That and the fact that the description from their record label (the delightfully titled EardrumsPop) said something about “analogue electronics and hazy vocals... and lots of reverb.” Yum.

So in the same boat as Wild Nothing, Kisses, Best Coast, Lake Heartbeat and all that lot then? Well, yes, and there is nothing wrong with that surely? The fact that they are clearly an aesthetically minded bunch weighs heavily in their favour too. The PDF ‘booklet’ they designed to go with the release is terrific, as is their stylish Tumblr site. The PDF includes the photo interview they did for A Negative Narrative, and if you have not picked up on that then that’s another pleasure in store for you right there. I like the idea that ‘booklets’ contained with digital downloads can be more than simple reproductions of sleeve art. There is scope for so much more. It’s something I know the Occultation label has been exploring and we eagerly await the results of that with the forthcoming Distractions release.

But back to Paperfangs. You can grab their three track single from the EardrumsPop site for free. Off you go now.

 

Some People...

IMG_0904, originally uploaded by Graham's Photos.

My friend Graham posted the photo pictured above last week; a lovely birthday present from Stefan of Denmark's toppermost of the popermost Northern Portrait apparently, and who could ask for anything finer? For their new single is a delight indeed, featuring lead cut ‘Life Returns To Normal’ from their Criminal Art Lovers set and a peachy cover of Sir Clifford Richard’s 1987 hit ‘Some People’. Now, as fabulous as ‘Life Returns...’ is, it is the Cliff tune that has had me enthralled the past few days. And why not? It’s a terrific song, and as these things are want to do, it makes one wonder just what other treasures are out there, cloaked in the unfashionable threads of the past.

Anyway, you can get your hands on the tunes courtesy of those very nice people at Matinee records. You can snag them on iTunes etc as well as on one of those lovely clear vinyl 7” single thingies. Be quick if you want the vinyl though as there are a mere 1000 individually numbered copies (which naturally come complete with a download code for the mp3s).

There's also a free download of ‘Life Returns to Normal’ on the Matinee site here. Result!

The Ocean Tango

I was delighted to be asked to write something for the Friendly Noise magazine recently. If you have not discovered it then may I direct you to their excellently designed site where you can find a collection of past issues presented for your delectation. Of course with much of the content it helps if you can read Swedish, but maybe you can think of that as a learning opportunity.

Now some of you might remember Friendly Noise as the record company who put out the Testbild! records in the past, and it’s a connection to that mysterious groups of Malmö-based musicians that my own contribution to the latest issue of the magazine relates. For The Ocean Tango record that I review over there is a collaboration between Testbild! and Louis Philippe, who many of you will know from his records for the él label and also for his work with The Clientele amongst others. You can read my full thoughts on The Ocean Tango on Friendly Noise of course, but suffice to say that it’s another album that has snuck its way firmly into my list of yearly delights recently.