i never thought tea with powdered milk would be all that great but it was actually very delicious.
i tried to sleep again but i had the old tramp’s voice from “jesus’ blood never failed me yet” rolling round and round in my head in some kind of fever-loop.
there’s something very Hermann Nitsch about BIG BROTHER. i’ve decided it is a good thing to watch because it’s the next best thing to being at a Viennese Actionist happening in the 70s.
the day rolls on ahead without me.

Posted by Andrew Clare on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004
(5 Comments)

i got sick. i got rolling around on the floor in slow motion with my hood up sick. i got doubled-up in bed with the heating on full blast and my hood up breathing too fast sick. i next day i got a bit better and had a good practice and maybe overdid it and got sick again.
and music. i seem to be listening to music again, after the last few months being cut-off from my regular supply of all the CDs from ETs promo pile that had interesting covers (this is how i find new music - has to have a nice cover) since he went all ebay on my ass i finally stopped downloading 5 million gigabyte .pdf ADVERTS and started downloading music. already i have a shared-folder list longer than both arms. i’m ravenous. i’m trying everything and anything, stuff i knew about but never got around to buying, stuff i knew about but could never find, track 1 from every band with a cool name i never heard of before, getting all excited when someone i never met downloads my own band. music seems to be saving my life all over again. it’s been a while. current favourites include the books, burning witch, os mutantes, battles, delia derbyshire, black dice, jandek (alwys room for more jandek), ethiopian jazz 1969-1974, experimental dental school, sumatran folk & pop compilation, malaysian gamelan (kinda like indonesian but less mechanical, more fruity), a whole new caroliner double album from last year i never knew existed and more more more…

yesterday i dropped in on an old friend in his empty furnitureless flat and no fridge and ate shortbread and tea with powdered milk. last night i woke up 4 times in the space of 2 hours drenched in sweat and went to sleep on the floor in the lounge at 2.30am. then maki woke me up because i’d been screaming the house down. it was only 15 minutes later. and the weird thing is i thought i was still awake looking at the door and the door didn’t move or anything and i didn’t see her come into the room but then it was like -snap- she was waking me up and the door was open, and i’d been screaming.
after that i didn’t sleep. so i’m a bit fried.

Posted by Andrew Clare on Wednesday, June 30th, 2004
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You can tell it’s that time of year - the summer breaking, dragging, coming and going, roses going orange at the edges of the petals, twig-like caterpillars inching across the pavement and getting pet-rescued by me to the amusement of passers-by, settling in for days putting on your brown puff-sleeve velvet bolero jacket because it looks dandy with the dove-grey low-slung skirt and single Art Deco pixie earring, and taking it off again when the sun comes out, and trying not to wear sandals in a rainstorm - because I’m making a Beach Boys mix CD. That time of year for inflicting the most neuroses-ridden downer-driven sweetness upon some other poor soul just because I figure they need it, right? Tailoring it to their most relevant Beach Boys member (the sleazy nihilism of Dennis suits this friend the best, but what the hell, they’re gonna get some Brian and Carl too). S’fun. I made one for David McNamee some time ago. I think he liked it, despite his subsequent emergence as a Brighton electro-hipster heartbreaker and all-powerful editor dude.

Throw chronology and taste to the wind and start with Till I Die. Wonder if this friend can handle Take A Load of Your Feet. Decide probably not; it took me six years to get into that one. Ponder on the atrociousness that is Funky Pretty (my Pisces lady…) and hand-pick moments of Pacific Ocean Blue that won’t cause cocaine tears and whisky headaches at first listen. Avoid Pet Sounds for now. Ruminate upon the essay you could write and the graph you could draw summarising the relationship between rock n roll wealthdrugsfuckedupness and rock n roll spiritualityhealthfoodself-improvement. And then forget all about that and swoon at the lazy girl-group prettiness of Let Him Run Wild and lose myself in the unresolvably sublime crassness and crass sublimeness (sublimity? whatever) that’s at the heart and soul of my Beach Boys Problem. If my wife wasn’t watching Big fucking Brother a few feet away I’d be singing along. In a voice that’d becoming ever more Dennis by the day.

I missed the Plan B panel thing at Brighton Borders last night, due to a combination of money problems, work problems and friend problems. Appease - kinda - by sorting out a good list of webstuff that David and I will throw at each other a little more and then finally do something with. As my friend from Cape Town texts me when he’s on his way to band practice, “Soon Come.” Honest.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004
(3 Comments)

Life spirals out of control.
Life lurches in fits and starts between long periods of abject boredom and a welter of activity culminating in performing the songs of Mr Daniel Treacy in front of a crowd of mildly interested indie sorts in a queer-themed Belfast nightclub. I tell a story of prison boats off the shore of England. I tell a tale of a punk band that once supported Nirvana, big show, big date, big chance – and slowed all their songs down to third-speed to fuck off the grunge kids. I speak of beauty, and try to emulate what I speak of, through the sound of my voice wistfully singing words of defiance and Outsider Status, love and heartbreak. Underneath it is a mini-disc recorded in Chris and Sadie’s excellent Hove seafront flat a few days hence – one song is too slow, and I stumble painfully.
Belfast is magic. Our hostess Helen is at pains to keep us topped up with company and food, and I even win a tiebreak on Trivial Pursuit final night. All this, a second viewing for Harry Potter AND a bomb scare (which nicely broke up Goat Boy’s birthday bash at the Front Page, and simply moved the party onto another part of town). It brought back a nice warm glow, me in my early twenties, shunted off one more train, out of one more building, London 1983. The pop quiz (a reprise from the Brighton night) went down a treat, especially the last prize of a pack of cold onion rings, left over from a visit to Ballycastle, and, previously, Giant’s Causeway, which itself was viewed through a slightly auburn haze after I’d downed eight or nine whiskies at the Bushmill’s Distillery. (I was elected taster.) (Shame I can’t stand Bushmill’s, then.)
Also in town, The Chalets – we found their voices and contrived pub bounciness a fraction grating in our delirium of no sleep, but listening to the single a week later, it does retain a real Bis charm. I’m a sucker for male/female vocal interplay. Songs should tell stories. Or, in the very least, be written by Herman Dune…
The sound you hear is rushing silence playing around the more gentile parts of my head, concentration and good humour broken by yet another sleepless night spent fermenting plots of revenge against everyone I know, but especially my friends (although probably not Andrew Clare, for some reason).
I vow to do away with this Plan B bullshit, soon as I can.
I vow to stop writing.
I vow to stop listening to music.
I vow to send emails to everyone looking for input from me, telling them to go fuck themselves. (This last one I do.)
I vow to move to America.
I vow to never leave my house again.
I vow to be like Howe Gelb, or Jon Slade, and be loved only for my maverick brutality.
I vow to stop mentioning Jon Slade so much.

The sound you hear is the silence of my basement, broken only by the rumble of distant cars (always) and trains, a clock ticking on the kitchen wall. Last week was spent in a hazy largesse of train journeys and insomnia: many men with nice smiles give me many CDs and seven-inch singles, some of which are even by bands I like. Many men with nice smiles pat me on the back (not literally) and tell me how good Plan B looks, like they have any fucking right to do so. Many men with nice smiles buy Chris Houghton and I food, and I realise that Chris probably has a nicer smile than all of them combined. (This isn’t necessarily a plus.) The only parable I remember from the age of 10 runs thus: The smile you see is on the face of a tiger. I am hailed as the prodigal son in Rough Trade Records, Ladbroke Grove – outside of which I once danced my ass off, bopping to the sweet sounds of The Violent Femmes on their debut acoustic busking tour of London: outside of which I once busked myself as The Legend And The Swinging Soul Sisters, regaling passers-by with a cappella versions of ‘Sweet Soul Music’ and ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’.
I am given a James Kochalka single in XL records, for which I am very grateful, because it is – indeed – exactly what you’d expect. I meet two dudes from Fatcat Records on the rooftop café of Brighton’s Duke Of Yorks cinema, and they exchange gossip about Sigur Ros that I cannot hope to divulge here. On the way, Chris engineers a moment whereby his mobile rings and we are offered a full-page clothing ad for our next issue. I accuse him of getting one of his interns to call.
Another evening, I DJ at an architecture party in Farringdon – Electric Six, Throbbing Gristle, Dance Disorder Movement – and attempt, half-heartedly, to live up to my reputation for being a mean drunk in front of a captive audience. A man is very excited to hear Shock-headed Peters once more, and shares his enthusiasm with me.
Tricky’s guitarist offers to perform with me on stage, possibly when I support The Cribs at their NME in London next month…er, assuming they contact me first.
England lose at football.

The sound you hear is the gorgeous, enflamed tone of Ms Rachel Nagy of Detroit Cobras, sweating and sweltering but never once losing her poise. Steve Gullick phones, to let me know Plan B looks like Careless Talk Costs Lives from the back: and it’s lacking him. I tell him I know that already. (I’ll share a secret with y’awl here: neither me nor Andrew expected Plan B to appear looking the way it does. We thought we’d actually made it look different. Yes, we are disappointed…but that’s what pilot issues are for.) Steve drunkenly emails the forum to complain at both our magazine and Bright Eyes – he doesn’t do this overtly, but I’m fully aware of his intentions. I like Steve.
Yesterday evening after a Plan B night at Border’s, Brighton, a bearded man who once wrote for UFO magazine and produces television pilots suggests that I drop a copy of Plan B magazine over to the Sussex Arts Club where it is well known cantankerous critic Julie Burchill has a residency. He thinks she’ll hold court. Lovely. I also enjoy films made about people who make films. The talk went fine, thank you – David was composed and frighteningly erudite (thank God he didn’t hold the mic too close, he might have shown us all up). I rambled and fell back on my usual defence of repetition. Chris seemed confused by the question about whether Issue Zero (the cover you see here on the site) is simply ‘a teaser’. “Well, of course it is…” he smirked. Through familiarity, eager media students taking notes of my lecture bullshit no longer disconcert me. No one mentioned THE MUSIC and that’s a fucking shame.
We should have.
Saturday evening, Jon Slade plays surf and twang guitar in a three-piece composed entirely of Taurus musicians – even says a few words into the microphone (probably “I’m thirsty”). They’re called Electric Bull, and have a ‘list’ song that contrives to be smart, rude and vaguely spontaneous (although amateurism should never be confused with spontaneity).
So there’s Jon Slade, and he’s as swarthy and unkempt as ever. And there’s his pal Stephanie who dresses like a Teenage Mum, with her four-day teeth and obscene mini-skirt. And on the walls – heralding another clinical performance from the oddly pure Miss Pain (odd, because they aim for a sleazy afterglow from their invigorating electric buzz) – are Rorschach inkblots, and nicotine stains. Pills litter the bar. Bucks fizz is proffered to early risers. Girls dress as nurses. Boys look seedy (as ever). Personality tests afford a five-minute sideline: Hey I’m highly neurotic. We call it ‘moody’ in the 00s.
Life slows down to a crawl.
I’m stuck on a train up to London. I’m stuck in London. I’m stuck playing a Gameboy on a train stuck somewhere in London. I’m stuck with this pornographic teen-fest of a novel, The Wanderers. I wanted to throw some words into this blog somewhere about beauty – beauty and the riotous, geeky, pure dancing of the two brothers from Herman Dune with their stories and travel and travail, and their chugging stop-start rhythms and four-second guitar solos and clouds of cigarette pluming above their bearded, beautiful heads, and their laconic dry wit and enflamed harmonies, and the way everything got stripped so gentle so quiet so beautiful and aware during that cover of Tom Waits with the singing saw…but this is why I wanna quit writing, one of the many maddening reasons. I had Herman Dune pinned down as somewhere between mediocre and Belle And Sebastian but – oh my God, the laconic wit, the brief brutal-sweet interludes of plangent guitar chiming and ringing out like the Modern Lovers raised on a solid diet of The Velvet Underground (or should that be the other way round?), like all the dream New Zealand bands of the 80s back for one last great hurrah, the brothers Herman dancing and lolloping so gracefully bear bellies hanging out and tales of debauched weed-infested train journeys and remembered loves seeping out, the harmonies so beautiful and beautiful and FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. I had Herman Dune down as – and this despite Mr Gullick and Mr Vanoli and Mr Clare’s recommendations, despite the fact that David dances like Mr Gullick in slow velvet motion and nods his head likewise, sports a pair of broken shades like The Legend! circa 1991, and all these songs are all new not that I’d know, Mr Vanoli has a tape of another show in France, three weeks back, and that an entirely new set in itself but nothing from even that performed for the first 40 minutes…and it’s like the Velvets and the travelling bed from Little Nemo In Wonderland and Calvin Johnson and Howe Gelb and Jonathan (of course, because I’ve been listening to hardly anything except his new album for the past month) and all your other cool male friends all got together and decided to not scare you, only comfort you, only hold you close and make you sad make you happy make you sweet make you sour with the cute ghostly wonderment of life.
Something that Royal City singularly failed to do. There’s a reason why Classic Rock was so reviled round these parts formerly, y’know)
And something that The Customers will only ever be able to dream of. Such fluidity! Such easy grace round an amplifier! Such smoking! Such unravelling and ravelling back up of dreams. Oh man. Oh daughter.

And just a quick word to say how much I fucking LOVE Electrelane – they are everything that is good and pure and passionate and melodic and righteous and female and mysterious and wicked about music. Someone grabs my hand. It’s my wife. And we’re dancing to the sweet Sixties sounds of Brighton’s own Phil Spector-tribute act, The Pipettes (matching polka dot outfits, hand movements, perfect two-minute self-aggrandising pop songs and all).
Man, I’m a fucking lucky bastard sometimes.

Keep the roaring silence away.

Posted by Everett True on Tuesday, June 29th, 2004
(4 Comments)

I’m officially on holiday - I am closed for business! My inbox is empty - my pending done. Automated out of office reply is poised….

Posted by Sarah Bowles on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2004
(1 Comment)

We’re making plans to meet up and talk about features and things for this site and future issues, and it all feels exciting again. After the hyperaction of getting the mag together, the lull while it got printed, and the proud-of-us-all feeling that finally descended on me after the launch party last week (it took a while, I don’t know why), it’s now all about what next, how to sustain this momentum. Juana Molina’s singing gently, backed by swooping, questioning analogue synths, and I’m thinking, wow, Sophie Heawood should interview her. New people are writing to me with great suggestions, and I’m actually writing back promptly, with words like ‘YES! Jack Rose rules!’ I’m actually harassing press officers myself, rather than the other way around, and, even better, there seems to be some lovely music in the air. Susanna and the Magical Orchestra’s new album, for one. Sweet, sweet stuff. I read that Richard Youngs just did a record with the drummer from Scatter, and that makes me really happy. I have a listen to Shystie’s album; think how much I’d like to get her and Miss AMP in the same room, chatting. Not so hard; we all live in the same bit of London. Can’t wait to pull all these strands together. I’m even looking forward to the inevitable arguments and misunderstandings.

I’m also looking forward to the next issue of Strange Attractor Journal http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/ , which I hope our contributor Mark Pilkington will be pulling together shortly; the next Loose Lips, of course; the always welcome issue of Bust http://www.bust.com/ , the only women’s mag a woman actually might, y’know, want to read, apart from of course this little gem, http://www.sweetactionmag.com/ , to which my wife and I are considering taking out a subscription, although I’m not sure I want to pay to look at hot hipster boys when, with a little effort, one can look at them for free in one’s own London borough. I’d rather pay for some useful information; London’s full of doe-eyed emo fuckup eye candy already, and the NYC/LA/SF versions are not that different, at first glance anyway.

But until Sweet Action shows up, I’m curing my insomnia by re-watching The Holy Mountain, late at night, wishing I had someone to shout “HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT AAAHAHAHAAAAHAA!” with at the appropriate moments. However, those moments come with such frequency that in the end I was just muttering it to myself and making those vague noises of disbelief only induced by the lines sight of…what was it? The alchemical transformation scene? The factory making toys to encourage kids to hate Peru? The hippo? Neptune, chief of police? The snake in the woolly jumper? The Pantheon Bar? The guy who conquered the mountain horizontally? The peyote/whatever scene in the ceremonial ball court of Monte Alban? All of the above? Probably. Afterwards I dream, appropriately, of strange goings-on in the Pyrenees.

Now if I can just wake up to the fact that I have to do my Day Job also, and stop running around the house drinking coffee and having ideas to the sound of Albert Ayler while I’m supposed to be working, things might be even better. I mean, I might have a bit more money and stuff. But really. Last night I found a homemade gold-green gauze circle-skirted party dress on the pavement outside Oxfam, which fits me like it was made for me (yes, I am going to go in and pay them for it, yes yes) and has no rips, defects or suspicious stains. If you don’t see that as a sign that the universe will provide, then clearly you need to refine your worldview somewhat.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2004
(1 Comment)

Today I suffered from a shocking hangover. The consequences of the Plan B launch party, which was amazing, thanks to the hard work and organisation of Chris our publisher.
I managed to eventually rise: to take paracetamol, tidy my room and eat peas. The rest of the time I stayed at home listening to John Lennon anthology, the illustrations in the CD booklet are beautiful.

Posted by Sarah Bowles on Monday, June 21st, 2004
(1 Comment)

I just lent him my minidisc and microphone. Now I can’t transcribe that interview. Now I can’t record my rehearsal on Wednesday. Now I can’t curl up under my duvet at 3am with the nylon string guitar and record little songs about hands and feathers. I’d run out the door and through the streets and snatch that little silver square right out of his bag, but he’s taken it to eastern Europe for four whole days and the plane’s already gone. I might have just as well lent him my diary or my ears or my Beach Boys bootlegs or something, so antsy and bereft do I feel. I know it’ll return by the weekend, with recordings of accordions and singing and all kinds of stuff on it. It will. It will, won’t it? Yes, it will. Buy me some cheap cigarettes and replacement batteries, I say, like that’s all it’s worth. Have a great time, I say, and get back OK.

I’d like to mix Andre Ethier’s record with Matmos’ so that you got one track of each following each other. One minute you’d be heavy-hearted and and staring out the window, rueful and maudlin like a girl whose minidisc recorder just up and left her, and the next you’d be gleefully ripping the strings off your guitar, glueing contact mics to your heavy heart and creating a wry subversion of the whole sorry-for-itself songwriting genre. I could do this on iTunes probably but it’s kind of a hassle, and I’ve got better things to do. Like writing sorry-for-myself songs, and a feature about Matmos.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Monday, June 21st, 2004
(1 Comment)

never made it to the horse hospital. i couldn’t stop with the sneezing and it didn’t seem like a good idea to put that into a crowded room. yesterday we had the most uninspired band practice ever. fed ETs cat. it’s a cute cat. it was raining so i made a little shelter for it out of a cardboard box and some plastic bags and parcel tape.

Posted by Andrew Clare on Monday, June 21st, 2004
(1 Comment)

On Thursday, Plan B launched itself to the world at the Horse Hospital – give these wonderful, wonderful people your money and support.

Save dayjobs, emotional stress, and family trauma, I’ve given up pretty much my whole life since Issue 1 of \\Careless Talk Costs Lives\\ went to the printers to this project, to act as orchestrator, pragmatist, accountant, and – I like to think – general voice of sanity. In return, our fiercely creative editorial team has tirelessly demeaned my endeavours and called me a yuppie with no soul. No matter. It’s here now and they’ve been superb.

Let’s have a party.

Plan (a) is to get everything arranged by midday.

This means: getting 200 plastic bags, kindly supplied by Rough Trade shop, to be filled with:
- Copies of the magazine (if it smells lovely to you, imagine having a the fumes of a thousand copies infecting your hallway)
- Garish green earplugs stuffed into baggies and stapled with our logo, on bright pink paper
- Flyers for the first ever Plan B London night (Spektrum @ Electrowerks on Thursday 15 July)

This means: burning a CD of Plan B music to open the night in Everett’s absence.

This means: finding the video presentation that Sarah Bowles painstakingly arranged last weekend.

This means: getting on the tube from Wimbledon to Russell Sq with bulging suitcases. And a CD player.

All relatively simple tasks.

Except…on Wednesday I travelled down to Brighton, ostensibly to talk through the reactions we’ve been getting to the pilot, and decide how to put our masterplan into action. Somehow I get convinced to stay the night.

…and on Thursday morning at 5.30am, myself, Plan B editor David McNamee, and my best friend Alice, are still up, still gurgling Passoa, still annoyed that we had our Quizatron triumph cruelly stolen from us by editors jealous of our youth, passion and knowledge. I awake at 11am, my head burning, my tongue tasting like sawdust, scream, and run to get on the train home.

I’m worried. I’m paranoid. (I’m \\desperately\\ hungover.) The phone keeps ringing and I collapse into nervous giggles. But, thanks to Daniel, Colin, Sarah P and Anna-Marie, we manage to get everything packed and to the venue, and – eventually – arranged on time, sneaking glances into the pub next door to check on England’s progress.

I needn’t have worried. After Rooney smashed us back into Euro 2004 contention, how could it have been anything less than a triumph?

The venue looks beautiful. Three TVs and a projection screen show spreads from the magazine and archive CTCL images. Posters are on the walls. Cute badges are on every flat surface. Magazines hang from the ceiling. People file in, slowly at first, and suddenly the venue’s nicely filled up. Introductions are made. Drinks are drunk. I flutter around looking for familiar faces.

Larry Tee is here, telling me about how useless NYC is right now, and how his boyfriend’s magazine \\Useless\\ will change that (we agree to help each other out). Michard Reltzer is nowhere as scary as his online persona or his stupid name (damn). Vodka is here, in two huge bottles hidden by the DJ deck. Stevie Chick, with his ubiquitous infectious smile, represents for South London with a new haircut for the occasion. Illustrators are – quite literally – begging to meet the elusive genius Andrew Clare. Sarah Bowles is beaming with the exuberance of her awesome contributions. Photographer Anthony has hoarded the spare magazines, having already proudly bought five copies to show his family. FMM arrives late from a gig and continues to succeed in her quest to be the sweetest person in the world, ever. Miss AMP apologises for not doing more for the pilot issue (as if her awesome features weren’t enough). Sophie Heawood, kicking_k and a besuited, behatted David McNamee provide musical accompaniment, frustrated that it’s NOT LOUD ENOUGH to the bemusement of everyone else, who are happily talking and dancing away, the atmosphere tinged with triumph and, and and. Vodka. Brr. Suddenly, it’s closing time, and I drunkenly thank the Horse Hospital for letting us abuse their space and hospitality, and hope we can come back in the future.

It seems appropriate to end with a quote from the song that begat this beautiful mess, and (of course) closed the night.

“You’ve always been searching for something
But everything seems so so-so
Tightly close your eyes
Hold out your hand
We’ll make a stand
Forget their plans
And their demands
PLAN B”

Later, we move on to the glorious hipster fetish freakshow that is Kashpoint, now on a boat on the Embankment. Larry lies to everyone that will listen that I am the most eligible bachelor in London. We drink even more ludicrous amounts of paint-stripping vodka. Sarah Bowles is setting the world to rights. Sophie Heawood is dancing like only she can. We dance the electro-dance until the sun comes up. Music fades as the cab purrs out of town. Celebration is still in the air.

(Big thanks to Colin, Anna-Marie, Sarah P, Melissa and Daniel and all those at the Horse Hospital - and Frances for suggesting it in the first place.)
**Chris Houghton**

Posted by Everett True on Sunday, June 20th, 2004
(5 Comments)