go get some

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Thursday, February 24th, 2005
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I chose the most inappropriate music (awesome party music for psychedelic Glasgow hedonists) I could find as a soundtrack for writing an inappropriate blog post. The post was about an encounter with someone who made me sad; eroded my confidence and pragmatism. The post was fucking lame. It hurt me and it would have made other people feel a bit sick, probably, such was its surfeit of emotion, and it would have disrespected and also hurt the friend who hurt me, who did, in the end, apologise, and some asshole would have posted a comment like ‘Oh please. Why don’t you go and have a baby or something?’ like someone did in the summer, when I wrote a post about Walter de la Mare. How they extrapolated one from the other I still don’t know.

So this post replaces the personal post with a less personal post, more appropriate to the seeming increase in both the numbers of people who read this and the growing air of responsibility I take on as a result. The realisation that this is no longer a cute diary for my friends; it’s the editor’s blog on a national magazine, and oh you five or so people, whoever on earth you are, I don’t think you need to know that today I cycled around Hackney with my fingers red raw on the handlebars, thinking about roles and meta-roles and what I was doing and who I was speaking to and what I was saying to them and oh the waves of paranoia that can be generated by someone who’s only trying to help you out. The realisation that an ‘open’ mind is often just a smooth, protected one, off which hurt and detail and all the tiresome stuff slides like the proverbial water off a goose. And that you shouldn’t listen to geese. Even if they are cute. Like the other day, me and my boy went goose feeding in the park and one of them was so greedy and dumb that it ate a crust of bread that had carelessly been thrown into to a splat of fresh goose poo, despite my trying to give it another, non-contaminated bit. That is what geese are like.

You don’t need to know this. Enough.

What you do need to know is to buy the new Loose Lips Sink Ships, because there might not be another one for a while. It’s so good. Eugene Robinson wrote for it. There are wonderful pictures of lovely Liam Hayes. I make a complete arse of myself trying to interview Ben Chasny. Neil Kulkarni interviews Thalia Zedek and goes on a train somewhere. It’s ace. It will make you happy. I know, ’cause today I had to put it to the test.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Thursday, February 24th, 2005
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Presenters: Everett True, Jon Slade
Special guests: The Concretes are in the studio to help us celebrate Sweden Day (the last Monday of every month). Plus, exclusive songs from Sleater-Kinney, Scout Niblett, Herman Dune and Electrelane

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Posted by on Thursday, February 24th, 2005
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Presenters: Everett True, Jon Slade, Stephanie Goodman
Loads of great stuff. Gossip, Ella, Dirtbombs, Al Larsen, The Blow. Nice. Again.

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Posted by on Thursday, February 17th, 2005
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I’ve come to the conclusion that my world is *this* small. Imagine my surprise in having my shoulder tapped yesterday, and finding Joe (Berlin based photographer) standing behind me. It turns out he works in London as well as Berlin and drops his film in the same lab as me. Then just now, I found out that the girl I chat with every now and then at the same lab is also a Plan B photo participant. Too weird, man. Too weird.

Posted by Sarah Bowles on Friday, February 11th, 2005
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Just been asked a couple of good questions on the forum. Thought I’d post my reply here, also:

…was wondering how you decide on the lead review in the album section (for example Nick Cave in issue 0.5)?
Although the review was favourable, there seemed to be a lot more positive reviews relegated to a less prominent position.
Also (and this isn’t a reaction to Smoosh), was wondering how a cover is chosen? I found the first issue’s illustrated cover a breath of fresh air in the music press, now you have decided to go back to using photographs was just interested in the criteria you use to pick ‘em. (Axel)

Good questions.
Re: lead album reviews. They’re normally decided after consultation between myself, Frances and Daniel (as the albums editor).
We receive a ton of CDs (and vinyl) every day. We attempt to listen to ALL of them. Somehow. Just in case. Something may slip through we didn’t know about. (It usually doesn’t, although there’s a great laptop electronica act from Hove called Listen With Sarah that I’ve been digging the last few days.) After this listening process we go ahead and figure out our leads. These are judged on several criteria.

1) Do we like the album? Unless it’s a band we consider crucial to our readership (which obviously we’re only ever guessing at) we will not give lead review space to an album we consider dire. Waste of space. So, hmm, let me see…we’d probably do the new Sleater-Kinney one as a lead, whatever it’s like - or Comets On Fire, Scout Niblett. Nah. Not necessarily. It’s bugger all to do with our readers actually. It’s more to do with whether WE consider it our heartland territory.

OK.

1) Do we like the album?
2) Has anyone even bleedin’ heard of the group in question, even us? To a degree, deciding lead reviews is all about balance - we don’t want too many obvious names as leads cos we like to encourage new talent. Similarly, we don’t want too many unknown names as leads cos we want people to read the pages and not be intimidated by the unfamilar. There’s a tendency (for me, certainly) to plump for reissues - Dinosaur Jr, TVPs, Babes In Toyland - so that needs to be kept in check. Balance. Plus, we like certain writers to feature an album each - FMM, David Mc, Stevie. And so on.

For the cover, the following factors are taken into consideration (or should be):

1) Image. Is it visually striking? Currently I’m favouring photographs because I think they’re more easily recognisable and we need to establish an identity before we fuck around with it, but I’m not actually basing this judgment on anything. I’m certainly not counting out illustrations on the front in the future (once again, we’re considering an illo as the cover for the next issue) - not least because I’m seriously proud of the illustrator team Andrew has built up over the years. Interestingly, we were accused of ’selling out’ at a bookstore discussion over that issue zero cover, because the group in question were Chicks On Speed. Never mind the fact it was an illustration of a lab technician sticking a syringe into a small fluffy creature’s eyeball!
2) Musical worth (for want of a better phrase) - are the group one that we’re proud to have on our front cover?
3) Story. Is the article worth shoving on the cover? Are we proud of the words written?

and, a very distant…

4) Impact on newsstands and sales. Perhaps this should be higher up, but honestly? Hmm. It’s a factor - very slight - ie: much as I personally dig them, I wouldn’t put The Diskettes on the front but that’s more to do with other factors. (We’re a magazine, not an Everett True fanzine: there doesn’t appear to be too much of a story: much as I love the music, it’s throwaway - albeit delightfully so: we have no images of them.)

The possibility of raising sales through our cover hasn’t been an issue up to this point (and never was at Careless Talk Costs Lives: although I won’t deny we did put Nick Cave on the front in an attempt to sell more copies and, rather sadly, it worked). It might become one if we want the magazine to be a viable commercial venture - albeit one with very high editorial standards - than a fucking all-consuming hobby. Which will do. Otherwise it won’t survive.

So yeah, 4) Sales. Trouble is, how do we put a ‘recognisable’ artist on the front without alienating the very people we care most about? Us. Oops. I mean, the readers. I guess if we cared about sales that much we would’ve gone with Bright Eyes this issue. We didn’t. We opted for what I, rather arrogantly, considered to be the most arresting story - both in terms of the words and pictures. I dug the music, too. Although the Bright Eyes and Roots Manuva photos were great.

I guess it all comes down to a final veto, mine: having said that, we don’t necessarily feature groups on the cover that I like. (I really don’t get Magnetic Fields. I was sold on that one by both the excellent interview, and the fact we considered it ‘our’ territory, whatever the hell that means.) As with the albums, it’s all about balance.

Out of the four covers so far, I’d say Joanna Newsom is closest to filling all criteria.
Except that at the time she was a virtual unknown. Oops.
Guess we’ll have to develop a reputation for taste, and then sales will follow.

Posted by Everett True on Friday, February 11th, 2005
(2 Comments)

Presenters: Everett True, Jon Slade, Stephanie Goodman
Everett returns. From Seattle. And promptly forgets most of his groovy new sounds. Still. There’s The Blow, M Ward, Lou Barlow, Stereo Total and a Chicks On Speed reissue. Nice.

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Posted by on Thursday, February 10th, 2005
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He came out punching, flanked by a team of bully boy session musicians. Tinted glasses like the cover of Trust. Tainted worldview, not dimmed by years. Quit playing ‘Watching The Detectives’ just when it got interesting, spacey and surreal because a fan yelled out the refrain. Launched straight into a version of ‘Riot Act’ that lacerated, shred, fingers a fistful of greed and anxiety. Sand blasted. Scouring. Scathing. The Costello of old. The Elvis of legend. Later spat the words to a new one, “He looked like Elvis” with a bile rooted in insecurity. First half, shouted. No room for subtlety - like he was playing to 50,000 people, not 1,500. Finished the set with two abysmal new songs, one the lowest form of rhythm and blues (ie: chirpy Cockney knees-up) with lyrics concerning a monkey. Advice? Drop it. The other, noise and indulgence for no sake except their own. Not in an affirming Oneida way.

Pedals kept cutting out. Slapstick developed: you knew Elvis wanted to do the slapping. “He’s cranky,” Charlotte remarked. (I’m paraphrasing.) Steve Naive was exceedingly annoying: flashy and bearded like every wannabe pro male musician in a guitar shop’s wet dream - adding keyboards where they just didn’t go. Ruined a perfectly decent reading of ‘Good Year For The Roses’; Elvis by this time had succumbed to the Brighton Dome’s charms (it’s the city’s finest venue, bar none: intimate and sensual and designed for maximum listening pleasure). Nerves? Hope so. Sort it out. Back to Elvis with his rediscovered sensitivity, singing off mic and out the spotlight. “Radio Radio’ was genius, as ever. ‘Pump It Up’ ruined by the worst sort of band introductions (all band introductions are the worst sort). ‘Shipbuilding’ just devastated. Venue in reverential silence.

Other new songs played: most overwrought, pompous. Elvis was over-compensating. First night of new tour. New album to promote. The usual. Sometimes he looked like he’d deliberately hidden himself deep within the welter of noise: powerful and lonely in the unforgiving spotlight. Others, it was torture, boredom. I felt sad, almost nostalgic for any series of moments except these series of moments. I never like to feel like that. Someone clapped, excruciatingly off time. Hardly anyone, though. ‘(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love And Understanding?’ was still brutal, stunning in its incisive albeit somewhat simplistic message.

Whatever. Dude, we stayed for two fucking hours - me and my pregnant wife who didn’t even grow up handicapped for social interaction by a love for the first six Elvis Costello albums. It’s our future baby’s first concert since he developed hearing. Let’s hope it doesn’t handicap him too.

Posted by Everett True on Wednesday, February 9th, 2005
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Posted by Sarah Bowles on Wednesday, February 9th, 2005
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Hong Kong

Taking photographs with my digital camera is easy. Point and shoot. Apparently, the thing can make movies – with sound. But that’s for wimps who read instruction manuals. Here in Hong Kong the land of high-tech, cutting-edge gizmos it can be rather off putting. All this technology, all these features. Here my camera feels like something from the dark ages, and I feel like i’ve got the literacy of an imbecilic hillbilly.

I arrived on Wednesday to meet photographer Anthony at his family home - ten minutes drive out of the main central area of Hong Kong. She makes us green tea in miniuture cups, we listen to ‘canto pop’ on MTV Asia whist planning the days ahead.

From here we take boats to national park territory on mainland China, where we climb mountains, traips jungles, and see wild monkeys.
We spend time with ex-pats, who continully believe that one day they’ll wake up and find Hong Kong is still run by the British, and the last seven years have been a bad dream.
We sip cucumber and hemp soy milk in Pacific Coffee as the sun sets over Exchange Square. We stumble across local street markets, where live animals are being slaughtered in front of our very eyes.
We visit Kennedy Town with towering bamboo scaffolding and odd ball little restaurants. The most accessible things on the menu being ‘French Toast’ and ‘Egg Noodle’, and in true form a medium sized cockroach brazenly strolls across an adjoining table to check out the morning far…..but no one pays it any attention!

Posted by Sarah Bowles on Wednesday, February 9th, 2005
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