Enough of this football malarkey already; yes? I mean, who
really gives a damn about 22 blokes kicking a pig’s bladder about the place?
All that kissing when they score and falling over if someone breathes on them;
do me a favour… Instead we’ll delve in to what has been worth watching, reading
or listening to in the world so far this year.
Television:
The first two months of 2013 have provided rich pickings in
all the varied manifestations of potential cultural consumption, apart from
cinema of course. It’s not that I don’t like films, as I’m happy enough watching
DVDs at home, such as Stewart Lee’s magnificent Carpet Remnant World that
Ben got me for Christmas, but my innate inability to sit still and be quiet for
two hours means I’ve not been to the pictures since 2009; a situation I don’t
see changing in the immediate future if I’m brutally honest, partly because it
costs so bloody much and I’m not just talking about the prices of those mini
tubs of Haagen Dazs either. Surprisingly though, considering that my television
viewing is generally limited to football, news and nostalgic music
documentaries on BBC4, I was utterly beguiled by a pair of new programmes;
Channel 4 deserves the highest praise possible for both Utopia and Black
Mirror. These two wildly imaginative dystopian dramas trod the
well-worn path of the kind of proposed nightmare society that would be created
in an imagined immediate future if all the conspiracy theories you and your
mate David Icke ever thought or even heard of came true.
Utopia saw government and big business malfeasance seeking to
obliterate those who dared to stand up to The Man in a convoluted plot about
eugenics and a graphic novel. The script was not only blessed with taut
dialogue, convincing characters and a logical, if wildly unrealistic, plot, but
it was superbly shot; the contrast of light and shade made it an unsettling and
deeply satisfying watch. The one thing that disturbs is not the array of loose
ends caused by the climactic denouement;
rather the ominous thought that a second series is in the offing. With Arby,
the serial killer with hinterland, endearingly batty Wilson and the vile
Assistant all goners, will any script be strong enough to bear scrutiny with
only the remaining characters? Or will dilution be risked by introducing idee fixes out of necessity? Let it end
where it did please, Channel 4.
The second series of Black Mirror benefitted from Konnie Huq’s maternity leave as, shorn of
her presumably optimistic input, Charlie Brooker produced a trio of bizarre
dramas of unremitting bleakness, which are a great improvement on the what if? whimsy of the first series. In
particular the second episode, White Bear, which seemed to combine The
Truman Show with Kafka’s In der Strafkolonie, successfully
played with viewer emotions in an artfully nuanced manner; a tough thing to do
when one considers the subject matter was child murder and mob vengeance as
entertainment. In a fortuitous accident of scheduling, the show aired after a
grimly disturbing insight in to youth offenders banged up and demonised in the
documentary series HMP Aylesbury.
Depressingly, but not surprisingly, incarceration was shown to have a
dehumanising effect on both inmates and warders; the brutal regime made for
more depressing viewing than Black Mirror, which at least had the
excuse of being fictional.
Books:
For 2013 I’ve made the crazy decision to swim against the
tide of my previous leisure pursuits by cutting back the amount of time I spend
on-line and reading more frequently than for several years. Having convinced
myself I was talking nonsense when I persuaded myself a few years back that I
could only read for pleasure outside of term time, I’ve ploughed through several
books, all second-hand of course. My take on this is that because there are so
many millions of unwanted books available, I cannot justify spending money on
new ones when I have constant access to free and dirt cheap pre-owned ones that
I find at least mildly intriguing enough to pick up. Also, I’m prepared to read
anything someone lends to me, opening up the possibility of more and more
textual consumption.
Thus, the first book I read this year was Garrincha
by Ruy Castro, a biography of the prodigiously talented but doomed Brazilian
footballer of the 50s and 60s, which my mate Dave insisted I read. Garrincha
retired in the early 1970s and died of alcoholism in 1983, so I have absolutely
no memories of his playing days, though I know of the legend of the wizard on
the wing, nicknamed Little Bird. His is a fairly typical tale of Brazilian
footballers of that time; born dirt poor to a dysfunctional family in a shanty
town, despite a birth defect that left him with crooked hips, Garrincha discovered
from as soon as he could walk that he could manipulate a ball in the most
incredible way, mesmerising defenders at every turn. Leaving his home in Puy
Grande, he signed for Botafogo in 1953 and produced a decade of brilliance,
that was somehow not unduly affected by either his rampant, unapologetic alcoholism
or priapic tendencies that saw him father 10 children by 4 different women,
during which time he also managed to win two World Cups for Brazil. Beaten by
the cruel turn of fate that were his wildly bent legs, his ruined knees
eventually packed up in his late 20s, precluding him from playing regularly or
at the previous standard. From then until his death 20 years later, his life was
a grim litany of alcohol abuse,
financial disaster, public relations fiascos and the inevitable descent towards
a pauper’s death aged only 49. The parallels with Paul Gascoigne are impossible
to ignore, though Garrincha achieved far more in the game.
Castro wrote the book some 25 years after Garrincha’s death
and this temporal distance does nothing to endear the subject to us; Garrincha
is remote from us in time and mood. A lack of quotations or interviews, perhaps
including the goat with which Garrincha first experienced sexual congress or
contemporaries from home or the world of football, leaves this book uncomfortably
suspended between scholarly detachment and tabloid salaciousness, meaning it
reads like a chronological, emotionless account of Garrincha’s behaviour, both
good and bad. It neither seeks to explain, justify or condemn his conduct,
meaning the reader remains curiously disengaged by the subject matter once
Garrincha leaves Puy Grande, as the accounts of Brazilian shanty town life are
written with a real flair and an eye for detail lacking elsewhere in the book.
Never once does Castro seek to wonder just why Garrincha behaved in the way he
did, which seems to be a fundamental flaw at the heart of this biography.
Remember The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole? Sue
Townsend’s half decent idea, which trailed far behind Diary of a Nobody in
terms of the quality of writing, was a reasonable period piece in the early
1980s. I was dimly aware of her subsequently writing another book, about
Elizabeth Windsor being dethroned and coming to live on a Leicester council
estate, but didn’t read it. Rebuilding Coventry, an uninspiring
and unconvincing novella about a housewife escaping humdrum domesticity after
murdering an abusive neighbour, means I’m convinced I was correct in my choice
to ignore Townsend’s other output. The best thing about Rebuilding Coventry is its
brevity; at 150 pages I skimmed through this dull chaff on a bus journey
between Tynemouth and Swalwell one snowbound Sunday. The worst thing about it
is the ludicrous ending which can provoke only snorts of derision and a feeling
of contempt towards Townsend’s lazy lack of craft or guile.
Another brief read is Larry McMurty’s scholarly series of
essays about Wild West mythology, Sacagawea’s Nickname. Unlike
Townsend’s banal style, McMurty’s writing is polished, anecdotal, beguiling and
assured. While the book is written for an educated American audience, familiar
with the history and customs of the West both pre and post genocidal
colonisation, the casual reader can find fascinating tales of an American past
unknown to most European readers and facts that make one take a step back to
consider the importance of what has been imported. For example; Sacagawea’s
nickname was actually Janey. Published by The New York Review of Books,
McMurty’s short book is a fascinating insight for any outsider in to the
continuing reappraisal of how the West was stolen.
Unlike McMurty’s topic, the life and career of John Peel is
a subject I know in intimate detail. I loved the man from the first time I
heard his programme on 24th December 1976, as when he played Richard
Hell & The Voidoids (I Belong To the) Blank Generation that
Christmas Eve, it effectively changed my
life. From almost a decade and a half’s nightly devotion to his programme, to a
fortuitous attendance at his 50th birthday party in August 1989
through infrequent exposure to his programme from then until Peel’s death in
October 2004, when I cried at the news, I remained a fervent admirer.
Subsequent unproven allegations of his dealings with groupies in early 60s
America have not made me judge him; however, it was a terrible sin of omission
that I had not read his (unfinished) autobiography Margrave of the Marshes.
After Laura picked it up for me at Tynemouth Market, I remedied this in 2 days.
It is a wonderful, nostalgic read, from which Peel’s modest voice leaps from
every line. Tragically he died before finishing it, so the remainder was penned
by his widow Sheila (aka The Pig). She makes a worthy attempt, but it isn’t
Peel talking to us in the last 200 pages; that isn’t actually a criticism, just
a sighing observation. It is a book I loved, even if it doesn’t explain why he
chose Pickin’ the Blues by Grinderswitch as his theme tune on Radio
1.
Another book I’d somehow not managed to read was E Annie
Proulx’s masterpiece The Shipping News. As I’ve not seen
the film either, I was approaching this blind and what a wonderful book it is.
Proulx tells the tragicomic tale of the hapless Quoyle with incredible verve
and sparkling prose, bringing the cold, inhospitable Newfoundland landscape
vividly to life. Everything Sue Townsend did wrong, Proulx gets right. Certainly
one wonders just what I’ve been playing at not reading this glorious account of
weirdness that verges on magic realism at times and wondrous, aching romance
until now. Of all the books I’ve read so far in 2013, this is the one I’d
recommend absolutely unreservedly, above all the others.
Similarly, John Updike’s Terrorist is a novel of
the highest quality, though that was true of most of my fellow psoriasis
sufferer’s life’s work. In Terrorist, Updike interweaves the lives
a radical young Muslim pining for the Egyptian father who abandoned him at
birth by means of a rediscovery of his faith, his lapsed Catholic mother
battling to make ends meet and railing against the role of women in Irish
American society and a secular Jewish guidance counsellor who tutors the boy
and beds the mother. The characters, as in so much of Updike’s glorious
writing, are beyond real and we sympathise with them all. Where he really shows
his mastery of the language is in his Vidal inspired, cynical dismantling of
the falsity of the American dream at the heart of Bush era Realpolitik that abandons the marginalised, whether by reasons of poverty,
geography, faith or the lack thereof. Any writer who describes the post 9-11
airport security measures in this manner deserves our praise -:
The dozing giant of
American racism, lulled by decades of official liberal singsong, stirred anew
as African-Americans and Hispanics … acquired the authority to frisk, to
question, to delay, to grant or deny admission and the permission to fly. In a
land of multiplying security gates, the gatekeepers multiply also.
Inishowen by Joseph O’Connor is another novel that seeks to
tell the story of 3 main characters. Following O’Connor’s tried and tested
blueprint of finding a ruined middle-aged man from the plush streets of posh
south Dublin, in this case Glasthule, and providing him with a chance of
redemption, O’Connor creates a sensitive and credible plot scenario that
includes real tension, and then wrecks it with an implausible comic sub plot.
Alcoholic, divorced former Special Branch high flyer, now busted down to
Detective Inspector after various events after the murder of his son, whose
Donegal grave he’s not visited in 6 years, Martin Aitken meets dying Ellen
Donnelly, escaped from her cossetted upstate New York family and in search of
the Donegal woman who put her up for adoption half a century ago. The two of
them head for bleak Inishowen between Christmas and New Year, finding solace in
shared disappointments, grief and in each other’s arms. All well and good until
the who atmosphere is ruined by a semi comic sub plot involving her uptight,
womanising estranged husband, brattish kids and a multi-millionaire gay sex
addict University pal who flies them all across the Atlantic in his Lear jet to
try and save her marriage. It doesn’t work and it deflects attention from the
real story of Martin and Ellen’s attempts to find common ground. Disappointing.
I don’t watch the Champions League on ITV, so I don’t see
first-hand evidence of how Adrian Chiles has metamorphosed from a self-effacing
football fan to a smug media talking head.
However, whenever I’m exposed to the
loathsome, though thankfully soon to depart, Colin Murray on Match
of the Day 2, I remember how good Chiles used to be in that role. Back
in 2005/2006 Chiles exuded an air of raffish blokiness, which imbues the pages
of his account of West Brom’s relegation season that year, We Don’t Know What We’re Doing. Cheek
by jowl with exhaustive match reports, accounts of ill-luck or incompetence
according to the circumstances, meetings with an array of fans both normal and
neurotic, is an accidental account of the disintegration of Chiles’s marriage
to then Blue Peter presenter Jane Garvey, which I doubt was his intention
in writing the book. Every mention of domesticity is in relation to arguments,
apologies or frosty silences. It is no surprise the couple split in 2008.
More positively and parochially, it is interesting to read
mention of Hebburn Town assistant boss Dean Nicholson, who was a West Brom
junior at the time. His parents, older brother Stuart, also a West Brom player,
and then girlfriend are all interviewed. Frankly, that was the most interesting
part of the book for me, once I’d read the accounts of Newcastle’s pair of 3-0
wins over the Baggies that year. I suppose it brought home just how dull Village
Voice must be to people who don’t know me or Percy Main Amateurs. Oh
well; useful to get that learned, as
Philip Larkin once said.
CDs:
2013 got off to a cracking start with new releases. Pere
Ubu, long a favourite of mine since the time of Final Solution and Non-Alignment
Pact in the late 70s, through to Waiting For Mary at the start of the
90s, have returned after another decade’s hiatus. When I say Pere Ubu, it is
basically David Thomas with another selection of supporting musicians who’ve
not played on an Ubu album before. This is of no matter as Thomas’s shrill,
hectoring voice is as strident and unique as ever meaning that Lady from
Shanghai is as memorable as The Modern Dance in its own
particular way. I often think of Thomas as a hybrid of Beefheart and Orson
Welles, with the kind of control freak egotism associated with those two
idiosyncratic geniuses, running rampant through this album. The coruscating,
yelping vocals are aided by art punk and free jazz discord and cadence
according to mood, in a unified collection where standout tracks include the
opener Thanks, which bizarrely borrows from Anita Ward’s Ring
My Bell, the anthemic manifesto of Musicians Are Scum and the fraught
phrasings of 414 Seconds. On the strength of this set, I purchased front row
seats for their Sage 2 gig on 15th April; it offers more in terms of
intrigue and creativity than the pedestrian festival of James supported by Echo
& the Bunnymen at the Academy the same night.
One band not playing Newcastle on their next tour are Yo La
Tengo, presumably huffed by the pitiful crowd for their last Sage gig in 2011.
This is a real shame, especially as their new set Fade is another stand out
release and shows further the wisdom of only doing an album every 3 or 4 years.
The opener Ohm is my favourite; a long, guitar-led dreamy, indie tour de
force that has long been their signature. However, it is almost a false promise
as the rest of the album does not go wholly down the guitar driven route and is
all the better for it; this is blue-eyed pop of impeccable pedigree, with
drummer Georgina taking over the mic for the ineffably gorgeous Cordelia
and Jane and a Stax style horn combo beefing out the decidedly soulful Two
Trains suggesting this is a band who have drunk deep from the well of
creative excellence but still have gallons in reserve. Yo La Tengo are simply a
wonderful band, perhaps outdone only by Teenage Fanclub in terms of group
cohesion and creative cooperation; they will be with us for the foreseeable
future. However, I still wish they were playing up here!!
There’s no way I would ever go and see My Bloody Valentine
again; memories of December 1991’s destruction of Newcastle Poly’s sound system
remain fresh to this day. As a deafening Feed Me with Your Kisses reached the
coda, the band launched a 20 minute free form sonic assault that blew the venue’s
electrics and actually affected the balance of much of the audience. I don’t
think I could cope with that again, especially having purchased mbv,
which sneaked out on the internet on February 2nd, causing their website
to crash. I bought it, receiving the download code but no CD, which will be sent
out later. In retrospect, my purchase choice puzzled me; why on earth do I want
the CD? I’ll never listen to it now I have the download version; I guess this
is a crucial point for me, as I may just have joined the digital generation.
Unsurprisingly mbv breaks no new ground. It’s
partly Isn’t Anything, partly Loveless and partly Tremelo;
bloody good, but does it really merit a 22 year wait while Kevin Shields
attended to the recording in painstaking detail? I’m not sure, but I am sure
that New
You and Nothing deserve praise as much as Glider or You
Made Me Realise.
As far as older stuff goes, I must thank Dr. Jonathon Hope,
Professor of Renaissance Literature at Strathclyde University for his diligent
research in sourcing me a copy of a delicious 7” slab of Tyneside post punk, in
the shape of Ward 34’s 1979 debut single Religion For The 70s, which sounds as
Comsat Angels and Au Pairs inspired fresh today as it did 34 years ago;
especially his bass playing!!
Elsewhere, I may not have got round to the Amon Duul II,
Incredible String Band or Sweeney’s Men purchases I’ve long promised myself,
but I now possess 2 CDs by Dr. Strangely Strange. Stewart Lee sold them to me,
by mentioning them on the Carpet Remnant World DVD, resulting
in an immediate trip to Amazon. This quaint, shambolic Irish
hippy folk outfit assembled at Trinity College in 1968. The next year they
released their affectionate, affecting low fi debut, Kip of the Serenes, which
I absolutely love. Despite such classics as Frosty Mornings and Donnybrook
Fair, it sold in minimal quantities.
Sadly, against the advice of their producer, the saintly Joe Boyd, they
ditched the charming goofiness and hired Gary Moore, later of Thin Lizzy, to
add blues guitar and Dave Mattacks, formerly of Steeleye Span and later of
Fairport Convention, on drums. The result is the largely charmless and decidedly
dull Heavy
Petting, which other than the opener Ballad of the Wasps,
which was an older number anyway, had little to recommend its mainstream pitch.
This collection sold the thick end of bugger all as well and they jacked it in
six months later. They reform every so often, so I might get a chance to see
them yet.
Gigs:
The other night, Ben announced he’d been getting in to Sonic
Youth, by playing Daydream Nation very loud. I was pleased to hear this, but
disappointed I couldn’t take him to Thurston Moore when he played the
Cumberland at the end of January, doing two nights and sounding like a 1985
Sonic Youth rehearsal. It’s gone now, but I am anguishing over missing out on
this, especially as I’d not even heard about the gig before it completely sold
out, meaning I had to teach my evening class the first night and play 5-a-side
the second. Work is also the reason why I missed ex Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie
at the Cluny the other week and why I won’t see Veronica Falls either. Finance is the primary reason why I’m not
going to see Richard Thompson at the Sage in on 3rd March and I’m
still to decide whether Mike Watt, 1st March at the Cluny, Viv
Albertine, 8th March at Morden Tower or Kelley Deal in the guise of R.Ring at
the Cluny the night after will have my custom. Thankfully I do have some
tickets for future events; as well as Pere Ubu, there’s British Sea Power on 6th
April, Neil Young at the Arena on 10th June, both with Ben and Ray
Jackson’s intended reunion of Lindisfarne at the City Hall on 23rd
December, which will be the 37th anniversary of my first proper gig,
other than The Clancy Brothers with my parents, which was also Lindisfarne at
the City Hall.
So, what about gigs I’ve actually been to? Well, the year’s
first outing was to see Scottish indie trio Golden Grrrls at Morden Tower, at
one of the estimable Michael Clunkie’s events. Having seen Shola Ameobi’s
confident penalty and Tim Krul’s heroics see Newcastle through to the last 16
of the Europa League, I arrived a bit
late to this one. Picking my way through restaurant detritus, looking out for
feasting rodents, ascending the unlit stone steps and finding the venue packed
to the very door, I reflected as to how relieved I was that Viv Albertine had sold out, as I’m not sure I
can handle Morden Tower on too regular a basis.
Accepting it would be initially impossible to see or move, I
caught about half of Mancunian openers Sex Hands’s set. They were another bunch
of 78 Peel session wannabes; neither unpleasant nor memorable. Before the next
act, I retraced my steps to grab a bottle of sparkling water from Sainsbury’s
on Gallowgate, taking the guitarist of Golden Grrrls with me as it was easier
to show than tell.
We got back in time to find a better perch to see incredibly
well spoken, amazingly petite all female band Silver Fox, who gave an
introductory speech like the parish notices in Vicar of Dibley. After an
opening number which included the worst keyboard solo I’ve ever heard, they
produced 8 to 10 numbers that paid homage to Kleenex and the Modettes at their
angular best. Superb unapologetically, enthusiastic amateur stuff, provided
they don’t talk to the audience, as they sound like the debating society at Cheltenham
Ladies’ College, which sort of spoils the effect.
Golden Grrrls, the foppish laddie I’d taken to the cash
machine and a brace of tomboyish lassies: one with a sensible bob and sweater
shop gansey, the other barefoot with sixth form pretend dreads, were just
fucking gorgeous. Two guitars, drums and three honeyed harmonisers, they did a
rapid 40 minute set of 16 choice Glaswegian pop nuggets. This lot must be the
children of the Shop Assistants, as this was C86 in block capitals, with or
without a Safety Net. Their between song banter was polite and stilted,
but it is part of their charm. I didn’t buy their CD afterwards as I’d not much
cash on me, but I’m beginning to regret that, even if there is part of me
thinks my gig purchases are out of duty, in the way I used to get hold of
programmes at non-league games. Sometimes your principles make you miss out and
it seems tonight was evidence of that.
Our annual pilgrimage to see Fairport convention at the Sage
was also done without purchasing product, mainly on account of the fact they’re
still pushing last year’s By Popular Request. The 35th
annual Fairport Winter tour arrived in Newcastle on exactly the same date as
last year and a part of me wondered whether we were attending it out of duty
rather than enjoyment. Any such worries were blown away by the freshening up of
the set list that saw the addition of both The Banks of Sweet Primroses and Farewell
Farewell, both masterfully and compellingly sung by the musical genius
that is Chris Leslie.
To attend this gig, I missed Whitley Bay v Billingham Town,
but got my mate Mike to text me the scores; he was happy to do it, but pointed
out I could see the game then nip over for Who Knows Where The Time Goes?, Matty Groves
and Meet On The Ledge. Predictably in the case of the last two
mentioned, these were the final trio of the night, but it was wonderful to hear
Sandy Denny’s classic reclaimed by the band; this being only the second time
I’ve heard them do this.
As ever, a Fairport gig is an event, a celebration and a
reunion; I may never make it to Cropredy, but I’ll make it back to see them
next year, possibly on the same date. However, before then I’ve got to decide
whether it’s Mike Watt or Kelley Deal for my next night out…
No comments:
Post a Comment