I’m supposed to like this. I’M SUPPOSED TO LIKE THIS. Do I like it?

I’m feeling uncomfortable.

I like the Dear Can one, in spite of myself, mostly because it doesn’t sound like Can unless you think the use of the words ‘want’ and ‘more’ constitute such a thing. I like the martial Liebezeitbeat, and the way it never loosens its grip and gets all anthemic on our lazy ears, even when it becomes a stomping house track. It has the exquisite restraint that I want. More and More and More and More.

I like this one, this Shit Scheisse Merde Pt2, ’cause it’s got an exposed bassline and percussion that sounds like slapping someone in the face and a simple slowed-down acidhouse sequence and the employment of a ringmodulator. and a *lovely* horn line.

I like it when they play live and all one guy does is play one-finger sample triggering for 20 minutes. I fucking love that. It’s the ultimate group music. It’s the Africa 70 and the Arkestra.

But when it all breaks into a hands in the air indie dance break that the indie kids can all get crazy to, well, it makes me wanna go punch 30-year-old men in their gradually loosening, rubbery stomachs. Hard enough to make them fall over.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Friday, April 30th, 2004
(5 Comments)

There’s all the things I should be listening to and all the things I can’t be arsed to listen to and all the things I got out of Hackney library/bought in Oxfam to listen to so that I wouldn’t feel that my whole listening life consisted of promos, Beach Boys bootlegs and Noxagt downloads, and they’re all arranged into neat piles on the floor. I’ve spent all day sorting, editing, shortening, typing, hassling and begging and now I’m stuck while I wait for some replies from those in charge. Unfortunately, they’re doing exactly the same as me.

For a break, I went round to a friend’s house to pick up some photos we might use for an illustration and read some of Arthur, which is a great magazine. One of the more positive things my friend brought back from the US, I reflect sardonically, then get distracted by Devendra Banhart’s pretty hair. The interviewer asks Devendra about anti-folk. He says something like, he could understand someone calling themselves anti-folk if the only folk music they knew was like Tori Amos and John Denver, but not if they’d ever heard, say, John Renbourne. he mentioned some other names too, all of which I knew and loved. Although I can’t remember his exact words, they slotted into my mind just right, and I knew why I hadn’t liked anti-folk all that much. And it was probably something to do with listening to John Renbourne. Devendra’s middle name is Obi. He is too good to be true, which is kinda annoying when you think about it. I try not to.

Here, here’s something USEFUL. Here’s a link to Arthur. It really is great. The interviews are really long and detailed, and it just…rocks. An inspiration.

http://www.arthurmag.com/

I tell my friend I want visiting rights to his cat. We laugh but it’s not actually that funny. He gibves me some CDs he’s throwing out - Nurse with Wound and Pan Sonic. Go home, re-pot the psychedelic heather that looks like coral. Wait for people to Get Back To Me. Ponder on the slightly depressing, slightly chilling, massively out-of-place night I had at the British Sea Power show. I even dreamed about it afterwards. I dreamed about an aftershow party that never ended, like that Bunuel film when the people can’t leave the party.

The piano on this recordings sounds old and a little murky. I like that. There’s that sad almost-twang that you get with older recordings of pianos.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Friday, April 30th, 2004
(1 Comment)

http://www.disturbingauctions.com/view.php?item=76

Posted by Andrew Clare on Thursday, April 29th, 2004
(No Comments)

The sun’s gone in.

Posted by Everett True on Wednesday, April 28th, 2004
(2 Comments)

Wrote sleeve notes for forthcoming Rough Trade indie pop compilation today. Although I take issue with the inclusion of Daisy Chainsaw, Ride and PWEI, and CANNOT BELIEVE there’s no June Brides, gotta say it reads pretty damn fine…Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Marine Girls, TV Personalities, Beat Happening, Wedding Present, Orange Juice, Josek K, Shop Assistants, Pastels, Desparadoes, Fizzbombs, Popguns, et al…

Anyway, Charlotte said I should post the following quote up here, talking about TV Personalities: “The terribly sad ‘Look Back In Anger’ is nostalgia as only young people can handle it: trauma heightened by inexperience, regret tempered by deep longing.” Er, that’s it.

My painting has turned out scary. Psycho killer scary.

Posted by Everett True on Tuesday, April 27th, 2004
(1 Comment)

Recieved new issue of Blender along with a sack full of mail today, Courtney on the front - even more airbrushed than her recent album cover. What the fuck has she done to her lips? Inspired me to create my first painting in over 20 years. I can paint about as well as I can play guitar. Nothing else of note happened today, despite a rumoured appearance of Ian Svenonius at the radio show. (It didn’t happen.) Wrote a column for Loose Lips Sink Ships, fulsomely praising The Cribs, The Homosexuals and Scatter, among others. Read AMP’s Chicks On Speed feature - sent for inclusion in Plan B issue 1 - and immediately resolved to raise my game, and expose The Von Bondies for the corporate butt-kissing fakers they are. (Jason, anyway.) Recieved some fine Top Shelf comics, including the latest Kochalka, and Volume One of The Complete Peanuts from my friend Eric Reynolds over at Fantagraphics…and many congratulations to him and Rhea on their recent wedding.

Great news from Omnibus. But I can’t reveal it yet.

Last week passed in a blur of largesse and hangover remedies (stay in bed is still the best I know). The spring onions’ seed pods are positively scary now, but the new tomato and strawberry plants have died, stifled by the heat indoors we presume. Growing some mustard and mould now. Baked some butter almond cookies earlier (our oven doesn’t “do” cakes). Saw Von Bondies on Thursday. Didn’t like them. I’ll explain why elsewhere. Held my birthday party and ET’s Quizatron on Wednesday, full respect to whoever answered the ‘Territorial Pissings’ lyric question correctly and boo to the Stop Making Friends posse for calling me a cunt for decking them a point in confusing Billy Childish with Buff Medways. Talked about death and connection. Talked about crushes and coffee grinders. Talked about bicycle routes.

I’m feeling well enthused about Plan B right now: even with just about the strangest Neil Kulkarni column you ain’t likely to ever read.

Posted by Everett True on Tuesday, April 27th, 2004
(2 Comments)

Been asked to lecture again. This goes on much longer, I’m seriously going to think about changing “careers”.

Posted by Everett True on Tuesday, April 27th, 2004
(No Comments)

Sneaking in some freejazz while my wife’s in the bath and thus unable to make that ‘nooooo! make it stop!’ face she makes at me. She came to the conclusion the other night, while we were sitting having dinner with the Animal Collective making silly noises in the background, that the reason I could listen to ‘experimental’ music and she had to do a ‘make it stop!’ face, was because I was more ‘tolerant’ about music and sound in general. I liked the neat reversal of focus there - usually those of us who listen to weird shit like to think we’re discerning and smart and intolerant, hard to please, demanding, erudite, and it’s those pop people who are over-tolerant bourgeois muppets, slaves to the 4/4 and the D major and the studio sheen. Oh no. What it is, us lot just got no critical faculties in our ears and that’s why we like the sound of things going sideways.We’ll listen to pretty much *anything*, we will.

Thank fuck. It certainly keeps me entertained, this tolerance thing. Imagine only wanting to listen to stuff that sounds nice.

[Note: ‘Black Unity’ is an intensely pleasant and melodic listening experience. It has brushes with chaos, sure, but for most part you can even dance to part one of it]

[Note2: it’s not like me and the wife have been arguing about this or anything. For the record, we are very happy, and she is a woman of excellent taste. And we enjoy very much listening to Cluster and Zeigenbock Kopf and Kim Hiorthoy together]

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Sunday, April 25th, 2004
(7 Comments)

http://www7.plala.or.jp/FILMODD/minijack.html

Posted by Andrew Clare on Saturday, April 24th, 2004
(No Comments)

.. the best thing that happened at that show was at some point in the dark someone standing nearby lit a cigarette with a match and i realised it was the first time i’d smelt a lit match in months. it was a really, really good smell.

Posted by Andrew Clare on Saturday, April 24th, 2004
(No Comments)