I
try to post these cultural blogs every couple of months, but on account of
circumstances intervening (life, in other words), this latest one includes
three months of listening and reading experiences. This means it’s a bit of a
lengthier read than normal, but at least I’ve finished all the Ian Rankin
novels now, so that makes my reading experience a little more catholic of late.
My musical tastes have always been so. Amazingly, there’s a dozen new musical
purchases and four live experiences to recollect. Anyway…
MUSIC:
Looking
back through my notes, the first event I attended during the period in question,
was Jon Langford & The Bright Shiners at the Central Bar in
Gateshead, touring in support of their Where It Really Starts album.
Despite having spent the best part of 4 decades in the Greater Chicago area, Jon
still has an accent that makes him sound like an extra from How Green was my
Valley? This band, unlike The Mekons, Three Johns, Men of Gwent or
half a dozen other outfits he’s been associated with, is a gentle coalition. The
album is a delightful series of touching alt-Country narratives of loss and
regret, especially the standout numbers Discarded and Seahouses
(which, he admitted, was actually about Seaham), as well as the rousing Old
Lost Dog and superb On a Scale of One to Nine. Live, in front of a
decent crowd of over 50, numerically and chronologically, the album got a good
airing, but there were a couple of Mekons classics in there, of course,
and also a lovely take of Streets of Your Town, originally by The
Go-Betweens. Afterwards, it was a pleasure, as ever, to catch up with the
great man himself, who announced that The Mekons will be recording and
touring next year. Brilliant news.
Sadly,
the tragically early death of Steve Albini means that Shellac are
no more, though their album To All Trains is a wonderful epitaph for the
most influential American guitarist of the post punk era himself. Like all
their other records, this one is a masterclass in delivering musical precision
with an undercarriage of scuzz and tension. Weighing in at a shade over 28
minutes, it proves, yet again, that brevity can be the soul of wit. This is
lean, mean cynicism, pared back to the very bone. The likes of Tattoos
and Days Are Dogs retain the minimalist vision that has coursed through Shellac
since their earliest releases. Cutting humour and concise storytelling or grim
narratives remain essential lyrical impulses, with the introspective Wednesday
a perfect example of the latter. Scabby The Rat and How I Wrote How I
Wrote Elastic Man certainly refuse to adhere to an idea of album-as-epitaph,
but the swinging Scrappers, with its child’s eye view of a father
quitting his job would carry a certain poignancy under any circumstances. And
there is, ultimately, no getting round the fact that the last song on the final
Shellac record is I Don’t Fear Hell, an unwittingly perfect and
unsentimental full-stop to the career of one of North America’s greatest ever
bands. Steve Albini was a hell of a man. RIP.
Jon
the Postman (Jonathan Ormond) died in 2015. Having adored his Puerile mini
album since I first came across it in 1978 and the utterly obscure follow up, Psychedelic
Rock’n’Roll 5 Skinners Steppin’ Out (of Holts Brewery), especially the
manic, delirious Senegal, I was compelled to purchase the hitherto
unknown to me Above God on vinyl for a fiver. What’s that sound? It’s a
barrel being scraped as by 1980, his seam of creativity had long been worked
out. Instead of making it up on the spot
(check out the vacuum cleaner solo on Toothache from Puerile or
the insane harmonica on PJ Meets TD), Above God sees a bunch of
reasonably competent musicians in a studio, doing some kooky cover versions;
the opener Merry Go Round is funny for the first couple of minutes, but
extended to quarter of an hour, it begins to grate, as does the Wild Man
Fischer tribute. Best thing about it is the straight take on the Blue
Orchids’ greatest hit, Work. Seriously, this is for completists
only.
While
we’re on about autodidacts, Bandcamp came to my aid by posting me in the
right direction for the re-released Tyres EP by the gloriously abrasive Deaf
German. Garbled shouting and mobile phone noise on 4 tracks that are less
than 6 minutes all in may not be your bag, but it is definitely mine.
Absolutely adore this lot and wish I could see them live. I did see Lee
Dickson live, with his band Deafbed, when I supported them on that
infamously grim night at Blyth Headway. However, Lee is a real talent,
and his stunning Birth School Work Death CD is a quasi-concept album
that is, I believe, more than a shade autobiographical. I love it to bits and
also enjoy the broader canvas of his solo no-fi Gerry Mandarin release Oddrophenia.
It contains first takes of many of the pieces that make up the Deafbed
album, but some solo stuff and covers as well. A really great bedroom recording
that the Swell Maps would have been proud of.
Moving
on from the shallows of the NAU and associated acts, I’ve been digging deep
into folk music recently as well. Firstly, and it took longer to get hold of
than an Allegro made at Longbridge in the 70s, was the Shovel Dance
Collective’s delightful Offcuts and Oddities CD. Comprising live
takes, rehearsals and disparate bits of discarded ephemera, it was available at
The Lubber Fiend the night I saw them supported by Milkweed, but
I ran out of cash. Hence the long wait for the postman (not Jon) to show
up with the goods. Goodness, it is wonderful; from the Tyneside miners’ song, Jowl,
Jowl and Listen, to the Copper Family’s Sussex anthem Down by the Claudy
Banks, they reimagine an eclectic range of geographically diverse folk
songs ancient and modern in a decidedly left-wing way. This is Chumbawamba,
Crass and Here & Now picking up the baton after Fairport lost
the plot. As ever, the best is the splash of Irish on here; I’ve loved The
Clancys’ take on My Singing Bird for over 50 years. The one here is
its equal and almost as authentic as The McPeake Family’s version on
Will Ye Go Lassie, Go? which I’ve also recently purchased. As I listened to
the Belfast gang’s wonderful period recording, where Óró, sé do bheatha
'bhaile always pricks my eyes with tears, an email announces a new Shovel
Dance Collective album in the autumn. All I can say is the teaser release The
Merry Golden Tree is simply incredible. Three cheers for finger in the ear,
hey nonny nonny shite, eh?
I’m
sure that’s a sentiment people who’ve come across legendary Offaly traveller
and sean nos practitioner Thomas McCarthy would get in bed with. His
Last Man Standing CD does tend towards love songs, concerning death,
loss and trips to fur Amerikay, though it’s worth the purchase price for
a lusty rendition of Tommy Makem’s The Battle of Benburb. Of a considerably more sedate style is the
charming selection of traditional songs and obscure music hall ballads on Goodness
and Guile by the eccentric South London duo, going by the name of Dove’s
Vagaries. I saw this advertised in Folk London, took a punt and I’m
very glad I did so. Charming and esoteric would be the two words I most
identify with this release and, even though I know little of the English folk
tradition, this does inspire me to find out more.
What
about rock music huh? Well, if Shellac aren’t noisy enough for you, seek
out the brilliant Peony; a guitar and drums power duo who lit up The
Globe at a recent TQ gig. These boys can really rock, in an early
70s way. You could be watching The Pink Fairies or The Edgar
Broughton Band. It’s loud, it’s hard, it’s surprisingly melodic and the
vocals can charm the birds from the trees. I love these lads. I also love Dragged
Up. No new releases since I last saw them in Sunderland in May, but they
essayed a different set where Missing Person and Bible Study rule
the roost, at an appreciative Cumberland Arms. This lot should be famous and if you don’t
know them, do some research now!
Gavin
Thomson
and Stephen Pastel’s soundtrack to the stage play of David Keenan’s
This is Memorial Device is a release that stands up on its own.
Obviously, I’ve read the book, though I’ve not seen the play, which means I
understand the narrative behind the songs. The album comes across as a third
iteration of the book, through reworked home recordings from the era and
expanded versions of music originally scored for the theatre production and original
readings from the book by actor Paul Higgins (who played “the
angriest man in Scotland” in The Thick of It), from the cast of the
original production.
Stephen
Pastel
and Gavin Thomson, returned to teenage recordings Pastel had made
with his old pal Corky and came up with gold, uncovering amazing ‘lost’
original compositions like We Have Sex, which perfectly capture the
affirmative joy and madman energy of two kids crazed on the possibilities of
art, sex and music. These are set alongside contemporary recordings that are
thick with small town romance and melancholy. Crucially, the album works as a
standalone listen, telling the story of the group in episodic flashbacks that
run from single-note Industrial scale drone works through caveman punk, lush,
cinematic instrumentals, bare spoken word, and a final expanded reckoning of
the last recording of Memorial Device vocalist Lucas Black that
would end the theatre performance on a life-affirming high.
This
is Memorial Device has become a huge cult since the book was first published in
2017, but this LP represents the first attempt to capture what the world of the
book actually sounds like. Fans of The Pastels will pick up on the
romantic/DIY approach but there is so much else here, so many aspects of the
world of possibility that the book unlocks, with a narrative thrust that comes
on like an emotional rollercoaster, at points hilarious, at others heartbreakingly
sad. This is the lost sound of Airdrie, which is the lost sound of small working-class
towns and villages all across the UK at the moment when post-punk turned the
streets into avant garde performance spaces. It captures the bold spirit
of tribal musical communities in these small towns, and the daring it took to
believe. Because after all, as the book says, “it’s not easy being Iggy Pop in
Airdrie.”
Finally,
back after a dozen year hiatus when they’ve been flat out busy on a dazzling
array of other projects, Dirty Three have dropped a stunning set with Love
Changes Everything. Occupying a niche few other bands can reach, this
presents us with rigorous periods of elevated calm, mingling with churning
crescendos of distorted chaos. Warren Ellis brandishes a hard-rocking
violin, played through more pedals than Frank Marino ever dreamed of,
offset against Mick Turner’s eloquent guitar, with jazz-shuffle cha
cha cha drummer Jim White providing space and perspective. Ellis also puts
down his fiddle, to splurge waves of menacing keyboards and hovering drones. Six
tracks, all titled Love Changes Everything, build and explore like a
spreading cross from an unknown planet, intensifying in depth, colour, beauty
and malevolence. We start off with the lo-fi textures of the opening track,
while the more pensive shades of the album’s midsection emphasise a wistful
beauty. It all inevitably ends on a pair of riff and drone saturated pileups,
with Ellis’s violin leading the inevitable, restrained charge his bandmates
beneath. A wonderful release. A work of genius. Buy this and the Shellac
album to find out what 2024 means, as well as keeping a few pennies aside for
the Shovel Dance Collective release in October.
BOOKS:
There
hadn’t been a place on my bibliophilic wish list for Ronnie Spector’s Be
My Baby, but when I came across this book in the name your own price, all
proceeds to charity discarded
pile of unloved books in the coffee bar at work, I thought I’d take a punt on
it. After all, who can grow tired reading about Phil Spector’s personal
demons and bouts of insanity? I already knew he was a psychopathic, control
freak, but what really tickled me was the stuff about his pathological hatred
of his male pattern baldness, to the extent that, like the editorial committee
at True Faith of the late, great Enver Hoxha, he disguised this
by having several, interchangeable Irish jigs of different lengths and cuts,
from short and neat to shaggy, semi bouffant, to appear more natural as part of
his evolving trichological cycle. He also only ever changed them in the dark in
his bedroom. Obviously, he went on to do rather more heinous crimes, while Ronnie
dealt with the inevitable post-fame comedown by squandering her cash,
drowning in booze and gorging on blues and reds, while recording, and sometimes
releasing, a few dozen cover versions of questionable provenance that sold the
square root of fuck all. A sad tale we’ve all read before, written in the kind
of schmaltzy, tearjerking, handwringing style so common Stateside. Well worth
20p.
A
somewhat better book is Paul Hanley’s Sixteen Again: How Pete Shelley
& Buzzcocks Changed Manchester Music (and me). As well as a storied
career with the sticks for The Fall, The Creepers, The Extricated and
now House of All, Paul Hanley has proved himself to be an erudite and
entertaining writer about Manchester music, with his previous works Leave
the Capital, an evaluation of the greatest Mancunian albums ever released
and Have a Bleedin’ Guess, the story behind the recording of The
Fall’s masterpiece, Hex Enduction Hour. This time, assuming the
perspective of his 14-year-old self, falling head over heels with Another
Music in a Different Kitchen and solidifying that bond with Love Bites,
he takes us back to those acrid late 70s days, beautifully recreating the
smells, sights and, obviously, sounds of an era I lived through, on Tyneside
admittedly, though going through a similar period of addiction to the songs of Pete
Shelley. Even better, Hanley effortlessly transports us to the here
and now, interviewing all the major figures involved, so he obviously doesn’t
need to talk to Steve Diggle, asking for their perspectives and insights
on events that happened more than 4 decades ago. It is a wonderful read and one
that you wish was 100 pages longer. Sadly, rather like The Buzzcocks’
initial career, it all rather peters out after the problematic genius of A
Different Kind of Tension. Clearly the music book of 2024 so far.
Two
music books and two cricket books as well. Hell for Leather by Robert
Winder is the story of the 1996 Cricket World Cup in India and Pakistan,
written as an overview rather than a retelling of England’s pathetic
capitulation in the bad old days. You know, the ones Jos Buttler is
trying so hard to recreate, though Matthew Mott’s departure may hamper
his efforts to become truly mediocre once more. Anyway, back in 1996 on the
sub-continent, corruption, bureaucracy, incompetence on and off the field,
barely constructed stadia and a relentless “us and them” siege mentality, as
perfected by the irascible, curmudgeonly Ray Illingworth, whose moaning
Yorkshireman act outstripped both Fiery Fred and Sir Geoffrey in
terms of performative irritability, pervaded the tournament. It seems that
watching the games was almost an ordeal, partly explaining why it must have
been even more of a grind to play in them, especially when crowds varied
between 100,000 plus screaming home fans and about 400 bored corporate glad
handers, depending on location and participants. Still, as we all remember, Sri
Lanka won that tournament so at least it had an unpredictable, if not happy,
ending. Winder writes well, allowing the exhausting narrative to tell
its own arduous tale, without the need for asininity or embellishment.
I’m
ashamed to say I’d never read Beyond a Boundary by CLR James
until the other week. It’s a tough, rigorous and forensic read, examining all
aspects of cricket, culture, radical politics and questions of moral
obligation, in the West Indies, England and America, refracted through the lens
of cricket obsession that had been the lifelong passion of James. It is
an extraordinarily rewarding read, involving figures as disparate as the
sport-hating Leon Trotsky, who had something of a crush on James,
and Norman Yardley, who sadly didn’t. Despite being written over 60
years ago, it tells a tale still depressingly true of the limiting impact of
the Old School tie on the English domestic game, in the south certainly, while
speaking of the vibrant love of the game in the Caribbean. It’s just a bit of a
shame I read it at the same time as the West Indies capitulated to a grim 3-0
test series loss to an England side, strengthened by the absence of Mott and
Buttler. This is a book I’m glad to have read and those of you who have
not done so already, could do worse than combine it with Different Class
by Duncan Stone.
As
regards fiction, I’ve read 5 novels over the past while, and the only way to
deal with them, is alphabetically by author. I know he only passed away a few
months ago, and it is unwise to speak ill of the recently deceased, but I
absolutely hated The Dumb House by John Burnside. I found both
the characters and the action repugnant in the extreme. I know he was a poet
and I’m fully aware this was his first novel, but goodness it tells a bleak
tale of misogynistic exploitation and psychopathic murder, all bound up in a
cloak of supposed scientific experimentation. It’s a grim, humourless, pale
imitation of Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory, with added dollops of
class prejudice. The unreliable and grotesque narrator seeks to answer the
question of the universal language, by grooming and destroying two already
damaged women, as well as killing 3 children, two of which he fathered. It
isn’t gothic. It isn’t classically grotesque. It’s unpleasant and I regret ever
reading it.
The
list of offbeat American counter cultural heroes I’ve yet to engage with, is
growing shorter as my age advances. The latest tick was Harry Crews. I should
have read him sooner but having mistakenly bought the quite awful Kim Gordon
and Lydia Lunch extreme noise vanity project Naked in Garden Hills
by The Harry Crews, I was somewhat put off back in 1989. On deciding to
finally remedy this omission from my cultural experiences, some 35 years later,
I found it difficult to find any of his works in print. Thankfully, Ebay
came up with a reasonably priced solution and I got hold of Scar Lover,
one of his later, barely recognised, works. And I loved it. This is your actual
Southern Gothic in extremis, a quasi-Bildungsroman where the protagonist
grows up pretty late in life and really fucking quickly. Alongside a
ludicrously implausible plot, suffused with screamingly funny vignettes and
interpolations, we get to meet an array of mad, bad and dangerous characters
that veer between a dying, foul-mouthed materfamilias and an English public
school educated Rastafarian Princess with a cut glass accent, who are trying to
make a good husband out of Pete Butcher. Discharged from the Army and dropping
out of university after 3 days, wracked by guilt at a youthful indiscretion
that seriously injured his youngest sibling, he finds the girl next door to his
rooming house has decided to marry him, rather than falling in love with him.
Things happen. Crazy things happen and those left living do so happily ever
after. I must read more of this man’s work.
One
of the regrets of my own writing career is the fact I have as yet failed to get
a novel or a book of short fiction into print. I hope there may still be time.
Someone who printed well over a decade ago was the editor of PUSH, who
writes under the nom de plume of Joe England. He’s already had
two novels published by East London Press and now has produced a third,
more of a novella actually, that has been published by prolific and
praiseworthy Spinners magazine, that I contribute regularly to. Lone
Moor Road is the story of young Ryan Robson being taken by his mother, with
his younger siblings, to his mother’s hometown of Derry, in the aftermath of
Bloody Sunday. Now I didn’t set foot in Derry until 10 years after this, but
the atmosphere, material living conditions and sense of a community at war with
an invasive, occupying Imperialist enemy, and a young child’s initial
bewilderment and subsequent comprehension of his relatives’ attitude bleeds
through every sentence uttered by the superbly naïve yet impassioned and
eloquent narrator. This is a proper book, reminding me of Shadows on our
Skin, by Jennifer Johnson. Lone Moor Road shows Literature
has no need to be even handed. Literature may be used to point out what is
wrong, without being accused of polemicising. What the British Army enacted in
the Six Counties was an almost unending series of war crimes, often with the
collusion of the evil, homegrown terrorists, ostensibly out of a desire to
defend their heritage, religion and crown. Even an 8-year-old child could tell
this was horseshit. Lone Moor Road is a quietly impassioned work of
beauty and loss, with a stunningly sad conclusion.
This
years offering by Magnus Mills, The Encouragement of Others, is
the same as it ever was. A gullible, naïve narrator does a normal activity, in
this case sailing, only for his efforts to be deflected and ultimately hijacked
by people who do little and explain less. On one side of the estuary, the
unnamed narrator lives an ascetic existence, sailing his pleasure craft up and
down the shore. After being told not to, he sails across the bay to another
settlement, where he finds a massively busy, friendly pub, where people queue
up to buy him drinks. On returning to the other side, he is not socially
excluded, but has his boat confiscated and replaced with a less flashy,
utilitarian version. For about 250 pages, he sails happily backwards and
forwards, drinking a lot and having inexplicable conversations, before the book
abruptly ends. I love his work.
On
Twitter, I ended up following the writer Marc Nash (@21stCscribe).
He seemed a good bloke; similar age, similar music tastes and on the left, so I
bought his novel The Death of the Author (in triplicate) and I’m very
glad I did. Not that I’ve had time to get my teeth into the rest of his work,
but Nash appears to be an experimental novelist and regular producer of
flash fiction. The Death of the Author (in triplicate) takes its title
from the famous essay by French polymath and semiotician Roland Barthes
(Il a été tué par un camion de blanchisserie qui faisait marche arrière…)
and runs with the concept. Part 1, a police procedural (could this be un homage
to Alain Robbe-Grillet?), during which the copper drops dead with a
dodgy strawberry. Part 2, his widow has a heated argument over the phone with
his agent, while trying to extract a few quid in delayed royalties. Part 3, the author is tidying up his study
after completing the novel, deciding what needs to be thrown out. It’s all very
post Modern and quite jolly too. Marc Nash is a synthesis of Flann
O’Brien, BS Johnson, Peter Handke and yer man Roland Barthes. I’m
looking forward to reading more of his stuff.
Where
next? Well Irvine Welsh’s Resolution has just arrived and David
Peace’s Munichs is in the post. If I’m expecting my next cultural
blog in 2 months, then new novels by Roddy Doyle and Michel
Houllebecq are due to land in September. I also want to read William
Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and The Enormous Room by ee
cummings. Also, you never know what I might get for my 60th
birthday, not that I’m hinting…
