it fucks with colours..

Posted by Sarah Bowles on Friday, October 29th, 2004
(4 Comments)

Posted by Sarah Bowles on Thursday, October 28th, 2004
(No Comments)

It was my turn to play records on Resonance FM’s Kosmische Show tonight. Leon texted me to suggest I honoured John Peel with a minute’s noise. That was the best suggestion I ever heard.

But when it came to it, I just said how much he’d be missed. And then I said I’d like to play something I liked, something we liked, because that, to me, is the best way to say anything. I put on “oh Yeah” by Can. There’s no particularly Peel-ish reaon why I played that track. I just thought it was beautiful right now, and I thought that he probably liked it too, back when it came out in 71. That’s all.

Those who bring righteous music to others with an excitement and openness and generosity of spirit that’s got nothing to do with fan-boy elitism and exclusivity - those who can sense the magic in the most abstract weird shit and the most direct teen pop both - those people are good people. We need them and they need us. I hope that some of that generosity of spirit can be found in Plan B magazine, and that that’s maybe one reason why we all feel a bit sad right now.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Wednesday, October 27th, 2004
(3 Comments)

Peely.

Posted by Sarah Bowles on Tuesday, October 26th, 2004
(No Comments)

Just heard the news about John Peel.

Don’t know what to write. I’m gutted. I saw him on ‘Room 101′a year back, and he was talking about his fear of death. It left a real, deep impression on me. He was scared. I could so desparately relate. It made me so sad, seeing Peelie like that. I hope he resolved it before his end. I don’t know what to say. I t’s undeniable that his influence and musical taste and enthusiasm brightened up my own life, and that of fucking thousands of my friends. I never envied him, always admired him: felt that just once - just for one time - someone from our side had managed to slip through and infiltrate the mainstream. And he continued to work his enthusiasms and his passion for music all the way through, uncaring as to what others thought. He was also about the best presenter I think I ever heard on radio: I loved the way he’d um and ah, stumble over words, mumble, in a medium where brashness and glibness are prized above all.

Thanks for giving us so much, mate.

Posted by Everett True on Tuesday, October 26th, 2004
(5 Comments)

I haven’t had people boo my set for quite a while now. How delightfully quaint. How gentile. In America, they’d be throwing stuff. Not at the Hanbury Ballroom, Kemptown though. Instead, they prefer to add the sound of their own voices - no rhythm, no harmony, not much imagination either - to that of mine, after Danya and I had been invited up as guest of Scout, at the end of her poignant, fun, rousing set: clashing drums and cheerleading without pom poms, the song about Linus dropped but, in its stead, a handful of Bigmuff-fuelled welters, an Irma Thomas cover, an astrological charm, a thimble full of new abrasive outings. The crowd were unusually attentive, the room hushed.

And I guess they were for the most part for The Legend!’s brief intrusion - ‘Death Is The Name…’, ‘Vincent Gallo’, a rant about coming home at three in the morning and sending an email to everyone you know telling them to FUCK OFF, and an entirely improvised number with Danya and Scout providing rhythm and soul, Danya sweet harmony, myself stuck and stuttering on three or four lines that weren’t my own anyway. Heh. People cheered. People clapped. Andre from Herman Dune asked if maybe I could play with them next time they pass through London - that would be an honour, sir, and a real delight. Jack Lewis (Jefferey’s bro’) gave me a band ‘time sheet’ to sign, embarrassed and sweet. (He reminded me of a younger Stevie Chick, in his fanzine days, actually.)

The entire evening was wonderful, magic.

I DJ-ed with William Shatner (a storming version of ‘Common People’ w/Joe Jackson in his best vocal for decades), Robert Wyatt (’Shipbuilding’), Les Surfs’ ‘Je Te Pardonne’ (a Spanish version of ‘Baby I Love You’), four plays of M Ward (his starkly beautiful rendition of Daniel Johnston’s ‘Story Of An Artist’), TV Personalities (’Posing At The Roundhouse’), The Pastels, Beat Happening, The Concretes, Detroit Cobras (someone release their version of ‘Last Night’ as a single, please), Joe Jackson, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Misty’s Big Adventure, Maureen Tucker, Nina Simone, Comet Gain, Girls At Our Best, Judy Nylon, Dexys of course…

Magic, ace.
Jack Lewis started off a cappella, before sounding a litle like my new fave band (The Diskettes, an ensemble from Toronto who mix doo-wop in with oddly resonant Calvin J vocals in with gorgeous cute melodies worthy of The Groceries, Clive Pig and Ed’s Redeeming Qualities, apologies if I’m going obscure on anyone’s ass but those three bands are all wonderful to me). Which wasn’t bad. At all. And then he got better: funny-sad, hopeful, plangent, Andre adding vocals. (”How does he manage to smoke, sing AND play guitar - which he’s holding without a strap - at the same time,” my wife asked, awed.) There was a drummer too, adding exactly the right amount of clatter and zero bluster…
—————————-

A brief break here, while - at eight in the morning - Jack and Scout turn up at my house for coffee, froth, The Diskettes and laughter.
————————–
Andre himself - backing up a female vocalist - was as charming/sexy/laidback/heroic as before. He still reminds me of Steve Gullick. He still plays on songs that have deceptive simple grace and chugging rhythms, like a toytown train forever pushing its way uphill. The girl sang with a slight accent that recalled Katrina from the Pastels (not such a bad recollection!) and afterwards kindly pressed a CD into my hand, Freschard - write to them now - that I’m playing right now. It has poise, melancholy beauty.

Yes. You read me right. FOUR plays for the M Ward song.

Posted by Everett True on Monday, October 25th, 2004
(3 Comments)

I answered Doomie’s email questions two nights back, at five am, when I couldn’t sleep - and refused to go back and correct any of the answers. Hence, the interview is as brutally honest as any I’ve done. Good questions, too.

I need to put this link here:
Everett True interview

Last night, I played the Fringe Bar in Kensington Gardens while rain poured down into the North Laines outside, and people sipped their wine and beer, chatting casually among themselves, smug in their shelter. I managed to clear half the place out, with my drunken rants about Vincent Gallo, Courtney, stumbling home at five to find the fridge has moved , the stairs have moved, and not only that, but the entire house moved four years ago and no one bothered to tell you. In between, myself and Chris treated Daniel Treacy’s songs with emotion and respect. At least two people came up afterwards and said they enjoyed it: two! Actually, I think both of those were just saying how much they enjoyed Chris’ Casio sound.

It was like being in Olympia all over again, the relaxed coffee house vibe (no idle banter while I’m swearing, however). Richard Sanderson played some very sweet and haunting laptop electronica, hidden among the rafters, he deserved more attention for sure. Later, he revealed that he’s played the role of both Marc Riley and Una Baines in an early Fall tribute band: second ever show in a Spanish art gallery. Monster Bobby also, played his part: sweet, formative pop songs with the odd affect and taped phone ring sound, love unrequited and found.

A great evening out. And I even had my bus fare refunded.

Posted by Everett True on Thursday, October 21st, 2004
(1 Comment)

So I’m just listening to Chris McGregor and the Brotherhood of Breath, writing an email to a musician, asking rhetorical questions, and suddenly the whole pattern of something new I want to write just spins itself around in my head and - delicate fanfare please, played on a silver trumpet - there it is, there, symmetrical as a snowflake, this idea. I love it when that happens. I try not to breathe on it too hard and melt it.

I’d forgotten that after that McGregor track comes the Matthew Dear one, and I’d forgotten that I really liked it, and now I’ve just remembered. The Matthew Dear track is called ‘Tide’. It’s got these bubbly filtered beats, like tampered with hand-drums of some kinds, and a chorus that says “I don’t care about you anymore.” It clunks like shoes on a wooden floor and it sounds crafted with real hands, but it’s got this bass that you couldn’t not dance to. It’s superior yet startlingly THERE. Instinctive electronic music without any of those pointers to instinctiveness that often needle me, those little too-conscious touches of humanity in electronica (to wit. guitars + glitches = NO, unless it’s like Matt Elliott, Leafcutter John, Capitol K, or someone else good I forgot, and banjos + beats = BEWARE*, as I think I said to someone at the Adem show, almost retching with discontent ) can sound so false and cheap and dull and WRONG. But this Matthew Dear song is a pop song, a breakup song. Its human touch is nothing obvious you could put in a press release and call ‘eclectic’. It’s more that sense of presence and absence combined that characterises the finest pop music. Matthew Dear. Anyone got any more?

In other news (oh man, we have to stop saying ‘in other news’; it’s infecting every blog in the country. I stole it off an American friend and I wish I hadn’t - soon it’ll have an abbreviation, like ‘lol’, and then I won’t mind so much), the ‘new’ Smile is freaking me out, like in the wrong way. Not least because Brian sounds like Wesley Willis. Ack. NO. Leave me to my bootlegs and my Beach Boys problem and take your sleevenotes with you.

Coh, on the other hand, sounds like none other than himself and to that I raise a bottle of cheap Efes beer and prop my eyes open for another night’s frenetic writing…”one: counted my blessings, two: counted my wrinkles….ten: pretended to be Icarus and burnt my hand on the stove…“

*(Please note Leafcutter John’s ‘Mandolin Work’ is awesome and is not what it being written of here.)

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Tuesday, October 19th, 2004
(10 Comments)

Fuck you.

I met Lydia Lunch today. She asked me to sit on her knee. I declined. She offered red lipstick. I declined. She went into a ferocious rant about female performers who try to cop her attitude but don’t understand the sheer breadth of her artistic vision, with particular reference to train wrecks. I lapped it up.

My wife asked later whether I made sleepy eyes, or wide open eyes at her. She also wanted to know whether I still found her attractive. I declined to answer both questions.

It was a real privilege.

Posted by Everett True on Friday, October 15th, 2004
(5 Comments)

I cycled down to London Bridge for a meeting with Everett - London Bridge, let me tell you, is where it all began for Plan B, sometime last August (and Careless Talk too, apparently! In the Upper Crust cafe!). See, Everett doesn’t like leaving Brighton all that much so he sticks with London Bridge as a meeting point. Means he doesn’t have to move too far from the Hove train that will take him back to his nice, quiet house and Misty’s Big Adventure CDs. But I digress. It was a good meeting, although I got the deadline fear (rightly so) and a few other fears besides. But in a good way. We drank coffee and talked about bands who looked like they’d “been put together” and our suspicions thereof. Kicked ourselves for not going to see Ultralyd last week*.

Everett explained to me a clever and mathematical way of writing features, which I might try but I might not because I’m really bad with percentages.

I got on my bike to go home. And then chanced to look up at the sky above London Bridge. When I’d cycled over it to the station an hour earlier it was bright silvery yellow white, with a fitful sun trying to break clouds the colour and consistency of persian kittens. But now. Holy fuck. John Martin and William Blake and a thousand bad fantasy artists between them could not paint this sky. I’m telling you, it was the blackest, gloomiest, most foreboding thing I have ever seen, darker than Camden Underworld, backdrop to a representation of ‘The Deluge’, or, failing that, ‘The Day of Judgement’ (only without writhing naked repentant souls, more’s the pity - just tired, grey-clothed city people struggling home).

It was biblical, and London was doing its best holy city impersonation, temples of Mammon lit up like Bruce Nauman installations and adorned with stone goddesses. And me, in the middle of it. I saw the rain before I felt it, noted with interest that it looked pretty hard, maybe it was hail…maybe it was hail; maybe it was gonna start raining frogs…it wasn’t hail, but damn it was painful. I wobbled through Shoreditch with water in my boots, tasting the weird London rain on my lips, whether I wanted to or not, catching sight of myself in windows with hair all slicked down to my head like a wet dog. All through this, I kept laughing. It kept me warm, almost. As extreme experiences go, getting rained on so hard you’re almost knocked into an altered state isn’t actually as bad as it sounds. Honest. I’m just glad it only happens to me about twice a year.

* Ultralyd. Oh my good god, ULTRALYD! More on them later.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Friday, October 15th, 2004
(14 Comments)