Cocktails and Records

I have just returned from a once-in-a-life-time-but-never-again-thanks experience: Mark E Smith ‘In Conversation’ at the London Literature Festival at the South Bank Centre.

It was exactly as I expected. A brilliant train wreck of an event which only Mark E Smith could possibly get away with. He ambled on stage clutching a bottle of lager, promptly managed to break the microphone then spent 30 minutes varyingly tussling with/ignoring/attempting to wind up interviewer and co-author of his biography Austin Collings.

In between recalcitrant silences, random Smith ‘facts’ emerged:

1. The Fall are not a Manchester band. Manchester bands are embarrassing.
2. He likes the Searchers. He does not like The Buzzcocks.
3. Shiftwork is one of his favourite Fall albums.
4. British journalists are selling themselves short and letting the internet take over their jobs. Soon they will be like American journalists who just re-write press releases and have no objectivity.
5. There is no difference between him now and him in 1979.
6. He doesn’t like to think about the past.
7. He’s been trying to get a pot belly for 30 years.
8. He’s never writing a book again.
9. This one (biography Renegade) is a pack of lies anyway.

After a while Smith just got bored and left the stage. He was reluctantly coaxed back to alternately answer/ignore a handful of questions from the audience. Not for long though – we were all back out in the foyer within the hour.

None of this suprised me. What did take me back was that Smith and Austin Collings were flanked by two silent blokes, one with a beer, the other supping a bottle of red, who just sitting there. I don’t mind Mark E Smith being difficult, random or belligerent, I expected it, but I never thought that he would be the kind of person who needs to have his hand held by a posse of lackeys, Elvis or Beyonce style. Disappointing.

Following another year of failure for Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest, the country is going through its usual post Eurovision Sunday handwringing about voting blocks and it all just being plain unfair.

This may indeed be the case, but I’d just like to point out:

1. Eurovision is pretty much entirely funded by the UK, France, Germany and Spain, countries which clearly don’t take the contest very seriously (compared to our Eastern European counterparts). So why do we bother funding it? And why do we think that contributing wads of cash to the contest means we should automatically qualify and that people should actually be expected to vote for us? What’s worse – being part of a political voting block or buying your place in the final?
2. Britain gave its 12 points to one of the worst songs in the contest – a Beyonce rip-off song from Greece – rather than to France, Norway, Israel or Bosnia whom at least made some effort. We may not be part of a political voting block, but the British voting public has ears of cloth. Which kind of renders invalid all complaints about Russia’s equally rubbish song winning because of political voting.

As I’m increasingly using this site to out myself (or rather purge) on various issues, I am really going to come clean now and publicly admit something I’ve never owned up to before.

My record/CD filing system doesn’t work anymore.

For years I have endured smirks from other, more tidy and alphabetical music fans when I try to explain the rationale behind the system. It’s simple and theoretically makes perfect sense, being loosely based on genre, release date and er… ‘vibe’ and ‘personal relationship to my life’. For example, you can find all of my Go-Betweens records arranged in order of release in the 80s/90s part of an indie-pop section, nestled closely near the likes of The Church and The Triffids and also in the vicinity of a stack of stuff like The Blue Aeroplanes and um… Neds Atomic Dustbin because I bought them around the same time. Because this is logical isn’t it?

But my collection has increased exponentially (and my memory has grown more addled) since this fine system was first put into place at the tender age of 10, and things have been starting to go wrong at the most basic level.

Things hit a new low recently when I was looking for the Incredible String Band, went absent-mindedly to the folk section and couldn’t find it. Of course its not there – I had at some point sensibly decided to file them with Pentangle in the ‘late 60s’ section. Near the Beatles because Paul McCartney once said that The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter was his favourite LP of 1968. Similarily, I was having problems instantly locating Pink Martini. I thought I’d put it under ‘jazz/lounge’ but actually found it under ‘world’ near Mariza, the Portugese fado singer, because they both played the La Linea Latin Music Festival in London and they kind of have a Latin vibe. Sometimes.

So you’re beginning to see the problem here.

But what is the solution? I can’t go alphabetical, it’s too clinical. And I like genre – it just doesn’t work all the time. I’m sure I read somewhere that John Peel used to file his records in the order he got them. Maybe that’s the answer? Any better ideas?

Sometimes I just don’t know how I am related to my parents. Of course, I am – I share my father’s cynical pessimism and my mother’s liberal hand-wringing – but when it comes to music, particularly the ‘classic rock canon’ which constitutes a fair chunk of my record collection, I do wonder.

The records below, now liberated from my parents apathy and in my possession, illustrate my concerns.

Example 1: With the Beatles


Amongst my father’s record collection are the first three Beatles albums. These records came into his possession when he stole them from an ex-girlfriend in 1964 as payback for scratching his Duane Eddy LP. They then lay dormant, unloved and unplayed, for almost 20 years until I announced aged 6 or 7 that I loved the Beatles and wanted, no needed, some of their music. They remain firm favourites.

Example 2: The White album

My mother has a mint pressing of The Beatle’s White album (and I mean mint – it’s pristine and perfectly preserved, including the set of four individual Beatles portraits which came with it). She received it for her birthday in early 1969, listened to the first side, decided it was rubbish, and never played it again. And side 1 is the good side with ‘Dear Prudence’ and ‘While my Guitar Gently Weeps’ on it. Thank God she didn’t start with side 4 and ‘Revolution no. 9′.

Example 3: Highway 61 Revisited

When I was about 14 I discovered a immaculately kept original copy of Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited in my parents record collection. ‘Who’s is this?’ I innocently enquired. My parents proceeded to have an argument about who didn’t own it:

‘It’s not mine. I can’t stand the man.’
‘Well, it’s certainly not mine. Do you think I would ever have bought something as bad as that?’
‘You must have because I would never listen to that talentless man.’
‘I tell you it’s not mine. I hate Bob Dylan more than you do.’
etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile, I decide that ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ is quite possibly the best song ever.

Example 4: George Bean / The Rolling Stones

Again in my early teens, I was rifling through my parents collection when I found a 7″ titled ‘Will you be my lover tonight?’ by someone called George Bean. As a young music obesessive, I naturally ask my father who George Bean is.

‘Oh, some guy I used to know’ says Dad absent-mindedly.
‘Really!‘ I exclaim ‘Both sides are written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and it’s produced by Andrew Loog Oldham! You used to know someone who recorded songs written by the Rolling Stones??!!‘
‘Yes.‘ Dad looks positively bored. ‘I saw them play a few times, met them once or twice through George.‘
‘What were they like?’ I am practically beside myself now.
‘Crap’ says Dad ‘like that single.’

‘Will you be my lover tonight?’ George Bean (2.49MB)

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‘Will you be my lover tonight?’ is the first single apparently written by the Jagger/Richards combo for someone other than the Stones and was released on Decca in 1964. Sounds like they’ve all been listening to a bit too much Phil Spector for their own good…

I was stuck on a train today with nothing for company but a Chinese tai chi manual (apparently written by a Mrs Li, but I can’t be sure of this) and a copy of Select magazine from December 1991 (with the terminally dull Lenny Kravitz on the cover).

From these I gleaned the following:

1. A picture does say a thousand words. This is good in the case of the tai chi book as I can’t read a word of Chinese, but not so good when it comes to the ‘16 page photo supplement’ in Select which features the close-up delights of Erasure, Jellyfish, Levitation, Jesus Jones and Miles Hunt amongst others. Did anybody ever actually stick these on their wall?!
2. Mrs Li and Select magazine take the weight of responsibility in their respective areas of expertise quite differently. Mrs Li has a stern look accompanying the many arrows in her pictures – it is very important that your flailing limbs are in exactly the right place. Select has the onerous task of reviewing the months new releases, and they certainly had their work cut out for them in December 1991. This month saw the release of classic 90s albums Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub (4 stars) and Loveless by My Bloody Valentine (5 stars) , but what did Select award album of the month? Intastella’s Stella and the Intastella Family of People. I remember reading about Intastella but I absolutely cannot remember what they actually sounded like. How can I not remember something supposedly that good?

And with that said, I’m off to find some Intastella.

It’s that time of the year when everyone does their end of year list/retrospective thing looking at the best and worse of the year. I suspect that these lists are often intended to make the lister look really cool and on the case. I’m nowhere near cool or on the case but that’s not going to stop me…

THE CRUCIAL STUFF

Cocktails

The cocktail of choice this year, apart from the superlative martini, is the bitter (yet sweet) Negroni. That’s equal parts:

• Campari
• gin
• sweet vermouth

Ice. Stir. Bitter. Pink. Nice.

Records

Midlake have probably been my band of the year. The Trials of Von Occupanther was a fantastic album which although released in 2006, I only really got into this year.

I seemed to have missed the boat in 2007 in terms of live music. Last year was superb (Steve Reich, Konono No. 1, Amadou & Mariam, Nicole Willis, Teenage Fanclub doing Bandwagonesque) but little has cut it this year other than well, Midlake, Orchestra Baobob (at the Jazz Cafe last month) and The Bad Plus (at the ICA in July).

Staying on the stereo from this year:

• Japan’s super kick ass jazz group, Soil and Pimp Sessions (which was probably was the gig of the year, but I sadly missed it)
• Laura Nyro’s Eli and the Thirteenth Confession
• CSS’s Lets make love and listen to death from above 7″
• Art Blakey’s Mosaic
• East Kilbride’s finest, The Pearlfishers’ Up with the Larks
• The very best of ethiopiques – excellent compilation of 70s Ethiopian soul and jazz
• the Carousel soundtrack. Obviously.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Good things

• The excellent dream I had where I went drag car racing with Bill Wyman. We ran into Morrissey at the track and he bought me an icecream. A nice time was had by all.
• Getting sunburnt in Scotland.
• John Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia, losing his seat to Maxine McKew, pinko former ABC journalist. Poetic justice.
• The rise and rise of Charlie Brooker.
• Leo Hickman’s The Final Call: In Search of the True Cost of our Holidays - a really well researched and well written book about how tourism is destroying the world. Sadly, I read this whilst on holiday in France.
• The fact that I managed to start writing this blog after many years of procrastination.

Bad things

• 99.9% of all primetime TV output. Will we ever be free from reality TV?
• Richard Dawkins managing to put even me off aethism.
• BBC Radio London shunting Norman Jay’s excellent music programme to digital, only to replace it with Heckle and Jeckle style presenters and lazy talkback radio; something that there’s not nearly enough of on BBC Radio London…
• The number of people I keep encountering who hate current London mayor Ken Livingston so much, that they would seriously consider voting for professional buffoon Boris Johnson instead.
• Having to pretend to care about Madeleine McCann.

Merry Christmas everyone – see you on the other side.

I’ve recently had a good moan on the main site about people talking and taking photos on camera phones at gigs (as has, I’m pleased to say, marmiteboy on his blog).

It seems that the Royal Festival Hall in London has come up with its own way of tackling this. OK, it is the Royal Festival Hall which, as a seated venue has its own set of rules and conventions, but before the Imagined Village gig this week (Martin and Eliza Carthy, Billy Bragg, Sheila Chandra et. al.) we were solemnly informed that taking photos was dangerous for the performers.

Members of the audience snickered at this extremism but we all obeyed. 

I wish making inane comments about the bass player’s hair was dangerous for the performers too.  

I was out with a colleague this week to a work networking thing, the kind of event that is only made bearable by the free booze.

Stood by the bar and fastidiously avoiding doing any actual networking, my colleague and I engaged in shoptalk until her attention was captured by a black and white photo of a classically mid 70s looking guy clutching a beer. She wondered who it was.

‘Oh, that’s Phil Lynott, you know from Thin Lizzy’ I said.

She looks at me and says with an accusatory tone ‘So is that the kind of music that you like then?’

I don’t, as it happens, particularly love Thin Lizzy, but then I wouldn’t exactly throw the radio out of the window if they came on either. I am sensing ‘issues’ here though and respond wearily in the way you do when you like lots of music but don’t really want to reel off 500 bands or singers to someone to illustrate the point.

‘Well, not them especially, but I like rock music I guess, I like loads of stuff.’ I then decide to risk returning the question. ‘What kind of music do you like?’

‘I love Alanis Morissette and Tori Amos’ she says.

Now I am used to people looking appalled when I tell them what kind of music I like (see earlier post on the musical Carousel) so I try to be non-judgemental about what other people listen to. And as I have pretty wide taste in music this usually isn’t an issue anyway. Unfortunately though, I really loathe both Alanis Morissette and Tori Amos. Angsty American female singer/songwriter’s are not my thing.

But it is too late. A look of dismay/contempt/disbelief has already swept across my face. She obviously senses this and explains that they have ‘personal’ meaning because they apply to a particular time in her life.

This is worse. As the Horse Overboard blog noted a while back in a review of Nick Hornby’s Songbook:

‘People whose favourite song reminds them of their honeymoon, their student days, a foreign holiday, and so on, don’t really like music much: “if you love a song, love it enough for it to accompany it throughout the different stages of your life, then any specific memory is rubbed away by use”’.

Nick Hornby is so right. I quickly changed the subject back to bitching about work.

On a recent trip to give my spare money to Rough Trade I noticed that the staff were amiable, attentive and even chipper you could say.

I really don’t know what’s going on here.

It all started a few months back when I set out one sunny morning to Soho to buy the boy a Roy Ayers LP and myself, well, anything interesting that came along. I went to Sounds of the Universe and the people behind the counter were strangely pleasant and helpful.

This was surprising, but I could handle it.

Then the same thing happened again in Ray’s Jazz and then in Vinyl Junkies where a staff member actually left the security of the counter and asked me if I needed help with anything. We then had a conversation about how great Art Blakey is/was.

Since this auspicious day, the record store staff of London have been positively oozing good humour and cheerfulness. A guy in HMV spent at least 10 minutes searching through the racks looking for a 12” I was after and the proprietor of a local vinyl emporium waxed enthusiastically to me about the delights of Steely Dan.

This has now culminated in not one, not two, but three Rough Trade staff in one visit asking me if was finding what I wanted (and telling me not to buy the new LCD Soundsystem record). In any other shop this could be irritating, but I am just so shocked that I am prepared to deal with it.

Have record store staff suddenly realised that being nice to customers might help keep them in business or is it just me?

I have spent the last week in Tuscany, Italy and rather than wax lyrical about olive groves, rolling hills, medieval towns, Estruscan tombs and Chianti ‘classico’ I am going to focus on Virgin rock radio. Somehow we found our trips down the autostrada soundtracked by this radio station. It ticked all the boxes – good reception, few ads and tolerable driving music.

So it was all non-stop driving rawk music: Eagles, Nirvana, Floyd, Blink 182, Franz Ferdinand, The Clash, Kaiser Chiefs, Beatles, Manics, The Cure, Bowie, Blur, The Doors, Doobie Brothers, Springsteen, Radiohead, Avril Lavigne and Aerosmith.

Rather like having substantial tracts of my record collection thrown back in my face actually.

But what really diverted my mind away from the Italian countryside / motorway etiquette that I should have been enjoying was just what a load of old tosh rock music is. Of course, we all already knew this but Virgin radio seemed to have a gift for making it especially apparent.

Most of the above bands have spent their careers developing unique market positions with pretty acute political and lifestyle associations. At the most basic level, this is: The Clash are not Pink Floyd, Franz Ferdinand are not Blink 182. All rock bands pretend to hate ‘the man’, some more obviously so (hello Radiohead!).

But Virgin radio, with its lack of DJs, back announcements and ads particularly seemed to elide all context and all political difference. It is all just tunes and riffs. OK, Virgin wasn’t exactly playing Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict, Rape Me or Of Walking Abortion, but neither does it care about Blur vs Oasis, Dylan going electric, Kurt Cobain’s screwed up anxiety or even Don Henley’s coke fuelled Lear jet lifestyle. Rock music isn’t about rebellion or making statements, or even about cultural progression these days. That doesn’t mean anything anymore. It’s all just tunes and riffs.