Winter
is such a bleak time that there’s no excuse for not shuttering your soul from
the realities of the shitstorm that is the outside world by immersing yourself
in a good book or three. Ironically then, I’m going to start this blog by
talking about two of the worst books I’ve ever read. Back in August when I
inherited nearly 150 football related books from Percy Main FC, I managed to
quickly flog 100 of them at a quid a pop (all profits to the club).
Consequently, I have since been left with a crate of ones that nobody wants
(list available on application or £10 for the lot if you’ll come and fetch them
from mine). I decided to take one, or actually two, for the team by thinning
out this number and reading copies of duplicate books. Somehow, the person
who’d donated his entire sporting stock to the club in the first place had
managed to get hold of a pair of copies of both Glen Hoddle; the Man and the
Manager by Brian Woolnough and Oliver Derbyshire’s sycophantic screed John
Terry; Captain Marvel.
The first is phoned-in biography for dummies that ends at the moment England secured a fortuitous 0-0 in Italy to qualify for the 1998 World Cup, so we don’t have troubling elements such as his treatment of Paul Gascoigne or eugenicist beliefs that the disabled are being punished in this life for their sins in a previous existence. Instead, we get a plodding flat narrative, where Hoddle’s seemingly arbitrary choice to leave his wife and kids after two decades of marriage is described with less detail or empathy than his decision to drop Ian Walker for Nigel Martyn in the England squad. Hoddle may be an enigmatic combination of banality and the occult, but you’d never get that here as Woolnough appears to be at least 100 yards distanced from his subject at all times. The book is an utter waste of paper, but is only marginally less otiose than Derbyshire’s dross that clearly was composed by means of a slavish copy and paste job that harvested quotations from a dozen interviews Terry didn’t give to the author who, as if to make up for the utter lack of insight into the deeply unpleasant bar room brawler Terry still was at the time of publication in late 2005, decided to produce 250 pages of inane, hagiographic horseshit that would be better used as blotting material on a dysentery ward. There’s three hours I’ll never get back, eh?
Thankfully, I did read some very good books this month which, serendipitously, all seemed to be about broadly similar subjects. Firstly, Gavin Butt’s No Machos or Pop Stars which concerns itself with the influence of the Fine Art departments of both Leeds Poly and Leeds University on the post punk scene in that city, which gave birth to such vital, compelling and ageless bands as Gang of Four, The Mekons, Delta 5, Scritti Politti and The Three Johns, as well as giving floorspace to other less well known groups whose work and reputation has not been so well remembered. Secondly, Hungry Beat; the story of Scottish post punk from 1977 to 1984 by Douglas MacIntyre, Grant McPhee and Neil Cooper, as viewed from the perspective of initially those concerned with Fast Products in Edinburgh (hello to the Gang of Four and The Mekons again, as well as other Yorkshire based acts such as The Human League and the criminally underrated 2.3) which morphed into Pop Aural and gave us The Flowers, The Fire Engines and Boots for Dancing, then Glasgow and Alan Horne’s seminal Postcard Records, home to the enduring beauty of Orange Juice and Aztec Camera, as well as the angular majesty of Josef K, not to mention a dozen other great lost bands, such as The Jazzateers, whose long-forgotten debut disc has not been off my turntable these past few weeks. Finally, or perhaps not quite, Stuart Braithwaite’s Spaceships Over Glasgow, where the Mogwai frontman gives us a superb and sentimental journey through his hedonistic teenage years as a shoegaze and psychedelia obsessed underage boozer and enthusiastic acid head. It’s quite one of the most charming books I’ve read in years.
Taking the books in turn, I was most keen to read Butt’s account first, not realising that as a Professor of Fine Art himself (at Northumbria), the contents would be as much to do with a scholarly analysis of the Situationist International as it was about the mechanics of forming a band as a revolutionary act against the prevailing macho culture of West Yorkshire in the late 70s. As such, I felt slightly short changed by the book in its entirety, as my desires were not addressed by Butt’s methods. For my tastes, there was rather too much evaluation of the syllabus content and ideological methodologies of the two institutions degree programmes than there was reference to where The Mekons got the lyrics for 32 Weeks from. Perhaps we need another book about Yorkshire music? Indeed, do we need a book about Sheffield? If there is one about ABC, Cabaret Voltaire, Chakk, Clock DVA, Heaven 17 and the Human League, I don’t know of it.
In contrast, Hungry Beat spoke intimately, entertainingly and without any filter to the reader, as an oral history of the Scottish counter culture from 1977 onwards. Unlike Manchester, which defines its musical Year Zero as the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in July 1976, Scotland (specifically Edinburgh as punk was effectively banned from Glasgow by the Presbyterian city elders, with all progressive gigs taking place in Paisley of all places) looks to the Clash’s White Riot tour of May 1977 as the big bang moment. Wonderfully, it wasn’t the posturing English upper classes as embodied by Strummer’s throwaway lyrics that won Caledonian hearts, but the off-kilter inventiveness of the much missed Ari Up and The Slits, as well as the still revered Vic Godard and his influential, incomparable Subway Sect. From that point on, Davey Henderson with the Fire Engines (subsequently Win, Nectarine No9 and Sexual Objects) and The Scars became the cultural gauleiters changing and influencing the zeitgeist from Leith to the Royal Mile. Needless to say, those who expressed a liking for football followed Hibernian. How could it have been otherwise?
Fast Product may not have publicised and presented local musical talent in any meaningful way, but the need for a city based label that allowed all the significant heads in the scene to coalesce was taken on board when the flame of creativity went 40 miles west. Those early Postcard singles were well named The Sound of Young Scotland as, to this day, Blue Boy, Simply Thrilled Honey, Mattress of Wire, We Could Send Letters, Sorry for Laughing and Heart of Song still stir the blood in a way little other geographically specific music has ever done. Sadly, across both books, important people fade from the scene. Andy Gill’s death hangs like a veritable spectre across No Machos or Pop Stars, while the unexplained disappearance from view of Alan Horne and Paul Quinn is the undoubted elephant in Hungry Beat’s front parlour. It is, however, a splendid book and an essential reference companion to the Teenage Superstars film.
Braithwaite’s book has far less lofty aims than the other two. He just wants to tell us, breathlessly at times, how much of a blast his life has been and what great music he’s listened to, and made, on the way. The contempt with which he refers to Britpop warmed my soul on a particularly dreich day in mid-November. I must admit I listened to Ten Rapid, the compilation of Mogwai’s early singles, with a great deal more amusement and compassion in the light of information about the poverty and squalor the band were living in, as well as the amount of rotgut booze they were pouring down their necks in those days. Spaceships over Glasgow has the special skill of being able to humanise the author, as well as demystifying his creative process, which makes it essential reading. It also makes me even more excited about seeing Mogwai at Sage in February 2023.
Another book that does exactly the same thing as Braithwaite’s is Pomona Press’s beautiful Sleeve Notes by David Gedge, whereby The Wedding Present frontman takes 15 of his songs, from My Favourite Dress to Rachel from Going Going and spills the beans on the back stories behind them. For instance, who on earth would have believed that Dalliance, one of the most autobiographical of confessions by a writer known for such punishing screeds of self-revelation, was actually about the woman having an affair with Jilly Cooper’s husband? Honestly, it knocked me for six learning that, as well as several other things from this book and an evening I spent at Gosforth Civic Theatre, watching a Q&A session with Gedge, followed by a semi-acoustic stripped back set from a slimmed-down Wedding Present, which is where I bought the Sleeve Notes book, as well as the guide to Valentina that I didn’t bother with when the album came out. It’s down to a fiver now, so I’m glad I got it; still won’t be buying the Cinema remake of the album though.
No need to panic; the music was great. Brassneck man; you know what I’m saying? Obviously, I’m a sucker for everything Gedge has done, but I am starting to get a little tired and wary of his endless pension booster tactics. I know he spent all his savings on keeping Cinerama afloat, but there’s a limit to how often you can rinse your fans without some of them occasionally feeling exploited. This 24 songs carry on for 2022 has passed me by; I’ve not bought one of the 12 singles (£10.99 each!!) and I certainly won’t be lashing out £135 for the whole lot of them in a presentation box. It’ll come out on CD eventually and I’ll get that. In the same way I never got any of the Tales from the Wedding Present graphic novels, but they can now be bought in two hardback volumes, which was what this tour was ostensibly trying to flog. I’m not a fan of comics, so I wasn’t likely to spend cash on that, not when I had the other 3 books I’ve just talked about to get. As an aside, I had intended to get You Must Get Them All by Steve Pringle, which is an appreciation of every record released by The Fall. Unfortunately, the fact it was £25 has put me off for the minute. I’ll wait until the price drops as, frankly, it isn’t going to go out of date, now, is it?
Interestingly, Gedge claimed that he can’t remember all the songs he’s written, so questioning him on specifics of an obscure b-side doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be able to bring anything to the party. This is a shame as, while I’m elated to the point of leaping off my seat when My Favourite Dress gets an outing, I still feel a burning desire to know what Gedge thinks about a song like Maniac in retrospect? Here’s the lyrics, with the added information that the first verse is spoken by a female -:
I
did get your message
I
just can’t believe you’re doing this
What
is wrong with you?
I
told you, it’s over, I am not coming back
More
importantly, I just don’t love you any more
Can’t
you get that into your head?
And
when I made that stupid oath
About
how I was going to
Pay
for someone to kill you both
It
was just my way of showing you
That
I wasn’t playing
Oh
yeah, you’re right, I sounded like a maniac
But
that’s just what I am saying
You’ll only see how much I’ve changed, if you come back...
Hmmm…
Elsewhere musically, I finally managed to plug the gaps in my Godspeed You! Black Emperor collection by availing myself of Music Magpie pre-loved copies of Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, which lives up to its reputation of being one of the very finest post rock albums of all time and replaces the worn and stretched C90 copy I’ve been using these past couple of decades, as well as the curiously underwhelming, if not to say tame, Yanqui UXO. Despite the iconic cover art, the presence of Steve Albini at the controls and, in the shape of Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls, the best title in the history of humanity, the record as a whole fails to ignite. Still, at least I’ve got a copy of it at last.
I’ve also finally got a copy of Umami Music by my erstwhile musical collaborator Chris Bartholomew, who I also had the pleasure of seeing live at The Globe the other week. Partly because I find it invidious and indeed impossible to adequately critically assess Chris’s work, I won’t mention him further here, though I do discuss him at some length in an article, 2022; The Golden Age of Rock & Roll that will appear in TQ 58 early in 2023 and also, subsequently, on this blog. Be patient please everyone; my words will be worth it, honestly.
The final musical item I’ve purchased of late is Burd Ellen’s outstanding A Tarot of the Green Wood. In these awful times, there is nothing more enjoyable that to lose yourself in both a book and the beguiling, but almost frightening aural netherworld inhabited and delineated by the eldritch drones of the folk avant garde, which is where Debbie Armour and Gayle Brogan take us. An album of traditional witchcraft balladry, with the compulsory Alasdair Roberts track amongst it all, A Tarot of the Green Wood begins with the unrestrained jollity of The Fool, before taking a far darker journey, presumably on the say so of tumbling cards. En route, we come across my former pupil and underground homme terrible Mark Wardlaw as well as the demonic piping of Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, as Burd Ellen combine the sweet melodies and sclerotic memories of a world too dystopian to be fake but too disturbing to be real. Undoubtedly, this is the best album of 2022 that doesn’t feature Alex Neilson.
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