I had intended this blog to be an in-depth analysis of the latest works by David Keenan and Alex Neilson, once workmates at the late, lamented Volcanic Tongue music emporium in Glasgow’s West End and bandmates in the most sinister of left field outsider music combos, Tight Meat Duo, but now respectively, one of Scotland’s most lauded contemporary novelists and a genius percussionist, songwriter and bandleader of the impeccable Alex Rex. However, while Alex’s latest album Paradise has hardly been off my turntable since it arrived, David’s 880-page magnum opus Monument Maker remains resolutely unread, looming menacingly from my bedside cabinet as the sole tome on my books to read pile. Despite the adulation heaped on the novel, I am currently finding the sheer size of the project almost intimidating. The actual task of reading the thing is just too big a project to undertake in current circumstances; frankly, I’m almost scared to open the pages, even if I have adored all of Keenan’s previous novels.
I’ve also adored the entire recorded output Alex Neilson has released under his own steam, from the aforementioned Tight Meat Duo via Black Flower, Directing Hand, the incomparable Trembling Bells, several collaborations as a hired rather than directing hand, and now Alex Rex. When I say now, it’s important to recognise Paradise is the fourth album under that moniker. Starting with the almost pastoral Vermilion in 2017, Neilson then cut two sets of scabrous, mournful reflections on emotional yearning and feelings of agonising loss in Otterburn and Andromeda, concerned partly with his own eternally complex personal life, but mainly the tragic death of his younger brother Alastair. When combined with Paradise, which is a much different beast to that dystopian diptych and more of a progression from Vermilion, Neilson’s work with Alex Rex must be seen as a four-part series of punishing blows to the bollocks and the brain by a man whose lyrics, musical practise and benevolent dictatorship at the helm of his own band, mark him as a colossus bestriding the world of contemporary music. The only realistic opposition to Paradise’s eventual coronation as album of the year is Mogwai’s As the Love Continues. While Mogwai paint wordless pictures in loud and quiet sound, Neilson’s hypnotic poetry and lo-fi folk, klezmer and faux Americana tunes beguile and hypnotise the listener with tales that would not be out of place in Dante, accompanied by the kind of love song sensibilities De Sade and Sacher Masoch would have raised a smile to.
There are 13 tracks on Paradise and at least half a dozen of them, often courtesy of the glorious accompaniments provided by Lavinia, Marco and Rory to embellish Alex’s wondrous wordsmithery, are among the best things he’s done. Just listen to the breath-taking scope, range and effect of Scandalise the Birds, What’s Shouted in the Dark (The Dark Shouts Back), Black Peonies, Man is a Villain and Every Wall is a Wailing Wall and you’ll know what I mean. Almost unintentionally, Alex has found himself transformed into a Caledonian Will Oldham meets Nick Cave and Warren Ellis combination, with the words, music and impact having an ineffable element of all three in the mix. Get yourself along to The Cumberland Arms in Byker on October 14th and see what I mean, then make sure you’re at The Punchbowl in Jesmond on October 16th when the sweetness and light of Lavinia Blackwall and Stilton come to town. They could be of the two most interesting nights imaginable this autumn.
I’ve
only been to The Punchbowl once to
see a gig, and that was in mid-August when locally based Krautrock and Mogwai
devotees Parastatic emerged from
their lockdown hiatus to perform in the upstairs space known as Bobik’s. It’s a
good looking room and Parastatic churned up a great wall of sound that now sees
them eschewing the distant, glacial, emotionless Motorik elements of their
earlier incarnations for a more intense, profound and humane wall of sound that
invites you in, rather than holding you at a distance. I know there are jobs
and family to consider, but it really is a shame the three of them don’t look
to do more than just create perfect studio sounds; warm, live imperfections are
equally lauded in my book. Tread those boards more often and let us buy your
product in a tangible fashion please. Indeed, I’ve just had a notification they
are back at Bobik’s on November 13th;
another one to get yourself along to.
Wandering through town a few weeks back, I got myself a tangible product. I’d popped into RPM for a mooch and a browse; imagine my delight when I found a 10” copy of Cheree by Suicide, in the Record Store Day box. I do recall getting a copy of Dream Baby Dream on 12” the other year from Reflex, but it had totally passed me by that Cheree was part of this year’s list. You know, I know, everyone knows that it is a seminal moment in synthpop history; camp, dramatic and destined to be immortal. Just a shame I had to pay £20 to replace something that cost 75p when it was first released.
The
first gig Laura and I got to see after 554 days was the Band of Holy Joy at the simply superb 3 Tanners Bank at the top of the Fish Quay. As yet I’ve not been to
The Engine Room, which is diagonally
opposite, but that sounds like a quality cellar room to complement this
semi-lofty perch; both of which are within 10 minutes’ walk of home, which is
another boon. Before this night, Laura and I had last been at a gig when Alex Rex celebrated the release of Andromeda with a gig in Glasgow in
February 2020, so it was appropriate that we got to see another fantastic
auteur who lives for his art, the sainted Johny
Brown in his home environment, or what used to be, as he’s been down in the
Smoke for nigh on 40 years now. Still with James Stephen Finn on guitar, Inga
on visuals and Pete Smith on keyboards, BOHJ had a new rhythm section of Darryl Hall on drums and Brenno Balbino on bass, plus a
whole new list of songs to showcase. Confession time; their last trip up here
was in May 2019 and we missed it, having already bought tickets to see BMX Bandits the same night. I fessed up
to Johny at the time and he gave us his blessings to be somewhere else. I’m so
glad that we caught this show though. The capacity of 3 Tanners Bank might only be 100 or so, but the place was mobbed
and, wonderful to see, half the punters were youngsters, really into the music
and creating one hell of an atmosphere. Admittedly the rest of the squad were
the Ralphies Agro and Knotts Flats Boot Boys circa 1976 vintage, but that’s
great to see as well. Johny, as ever, was the Shields street poet we know and
love; Rosemary Smith left not a dry
eye in the place and The Devil's Got a Hold on the Land almost literally took the roof off. Simply one of their most energised and
vital performances in years. How on earth does this lot still keep drinking
from but not draining the fountain of eternal musical youth?
After the gig, as an early birthday present, Laura purchased a copy of Johny and Inga’s Field Notes; an imaginary travelogue of the floating, maritime Radio Joy, cast adrift amidst a queasy swell in the grey North Sea. Partly based on the actual Radio Joy programme on Resonance FM, it consists of a series of invented dialogues between those aboard and even some on shore, creating a fictional narrative of a tense and fearful voyage in an unknown seascape that should feel familiar. Tremendous stuff, showing Johny’s not just a master lyricist, but a prose writer of some skill.
The most recent live show we took in, with Ben and Lucy in tow as well, was the sexy, monstrous return of Arab Strap at the Boiler Shop, touring on the back of this year’s venomous As Days Get Dark reconciliation/reformation album. Without question, the Boiler Shop is the city’s best “big” venue, in terms of layout, atmosphere and ease of access to the facilities (piss and pint, basically). It’s about 70% full, so there’s room to move around at your will and that’s good as Moffat and Middleton are onstage for an hour and three quarters which, bearing in mind the intensity of most of the songs they do, is just on the cusp of entertainment becoming an ordeal. Start with a mammoth rendition of The Turning of Our Bones, the duo (plus band) never give up.
Aidan Moffat veers from deadpan to declamatory when delivering words that can be humiliating one second, then poignant and humorous the next. The amazing thing is, he seems to be in genuinely good form, making an impassioned paean to Newcastle as a city, which is 100% genuine and not for any wish to curry favour. Of course, Arab Strap as a whole should be far more popular than they already are. With As Days Get Dark, they have snared a whole new generation of fans while the significantly older part of the crowd become delirious during The First Big Weekend. Arab Strap, ancient and modern, deserve the acclaim. They are an essential part of the current music scene.
And so, back to books. Earlier this year, when placing an order for an autographed copy of Monument Maker from Mono (where else?), I also purchased other Keenan products I’d not yet read. Not England’s Hidden Reverse alas, but a stylised deck of Tarot Cards, examined but not utilised thus far, a packet of stickers that remain unopened and two A5 pamphlets Empty Aphrodite: An Encyclopaedia of Fate and To Run Wild In It. The first booklet is described as a radical imagining of the Gods of antiquity as archetypal powers and forces that every human being encounters in their life. The Encyclopaedia is an alphabetic poetic sourcebook that combines magick and inspiration in a series of channelled surrealist portraits of the powers of now. In contrast, the second is allegedly a book about tarot, an experimental novella, a ‘channelled’ text and an extension of ideas first broached in David Keenan’s acclaimed debut novel, This Is Memorial Device. Taking the maxim that the best way to understand the tarot is to create your own, Keenan has reimagined the deck as the unfolding of parallel stories alive with uncanny oracular detail. Apparently, the accompanying deck, while still having an umbilical to the card’s archaic roots, future-visions it as a glam-punk portal deep into the Now and we are entreated to choose your fate with the five random stickers included with this encyclopaedia.
Now I’m not trying to be curmudgeonly here but, while I enjoyed the graphic and grotesque To Run Wild In It, I actually found Empty Aphrodite absolutely incomprehensible, both with and without the tarot pack, never mind the stickers. I’m not opposed to “difficult” literature, as can be seen by my lauding of Houellebecq and BS Johnson, just for starters, on this website last year. However, the whole concept of magick, whatever that means, just leaves me cold and bored. Being brutally honest, This is Memorial Device and For the Good Times are the kind of thing I’m interested in, though I will concede that Xstabeth was a tremendous read, even if it is my least favourite of Keenan’s works. Basically, I need to get on with reading Monument Maker, then come back and say what I think of it, having read the fucking thing.
Finally, the 2021/2022 Utilita Football Yearbook is the 52nd annual edition of what most of us still call Rothmans. As has been the case since the first appearance of this glorious tome in 1970, it is packed with over a thousand pages of facts and information about football from the highest reaches of the international game, down to the very bottom divisions of the arcane and antediluvian Amateur Football Association. I find it impossible to sprawl on the sofa in front of any live game or packaged highlights without consulting this mammoth reference guide, often losing interest in what I’m watching in order to fall down a worm hole of obscure trivia. No wonder I’ve collected a copy of each and every edition over the years. Is it too late in life to start accumulating Wisdens as well?
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