The Genius of Belle & Sebastian

I've been involved in some way in the selling of all Belle & Sebastian's records since their classic Dog On Wheels EP right up to The Life Pursuit, and I have to say that choosing just 5 or 6 examples from their catalogue has been very difficult. They have so many fantastic songs.

I can remember being blown away by the songwriting on Dog On Wheels, and then finding (what I perceived to be) their indier-than-thou attitude pretty insufferable. Or maybe it was just the twee-ness of their fans. Singer & main writer Stuart Murdoch seemed neither lover nor fighter (definitely not fighter!), but another somewhat self-pitying, Morrissey-esque bedroom bard. And yet his literary lyrical style could sometimes be the equal of Morrissey, whilst his frail delivery suited his 'sensitive artist' themes. I went to see them around this time (1997 or so) at the Union Chapel, Islington. Their interaction with the audience was diffident, they were fractured and amateurish, with minutes between each song as they swapped instruments, retuned and generally did not rock out! I made a drunken fool of myself by barracking them with calls to 'Play Whole Lotta Rosie' (and other metal showstoppers). Not very proud of that, but the fact remains their live show was poor. I think perhaps the band were terrified of the venue - and maybe the audience.

'Like Dylan In The Movies' from If You're Feeling Sinister commonly held to be their best - another one of those classic 'Don't Look Back' albums that's been played in full with the recording released as 'If You're Feeling Sinister - Live at the Barbican'. Last year I think '...Sinister' was voted as the Best Album on eMusic, but it's not on there at the moment. No doubt related to the fiasco as their distributor went bust.
'The State That I Am In' from Dog on Wheels EP now available on Push Barman To Open Old Wounds. The track 'Dog On Wheels' bears more than a passing resemblance to 'Summer Wine' by Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood but I can only admire their taste in plagiarism

A couple of years later I saw them at Barrowlands in Glasgow, and then they really did rock out in front of a bouncing homecoming crowd - they'd obviously heard Thin Lizzy's Live & Dangerous by this time! On record the songs had often had, up to this point, quite a lo fi sound but live many of their best songs were almost anthemic. What's so admirable about Belle & Sebastian in the studio is the palette of sounds they use - strings, brass & woodwind are all added to the meat-and-potatoes guitar & keyboard set up to create a very full yet subtle melodic space. And their arrangements are superb.

'This Is Just A Modern Rock Song' contains the typically self effacing lyric 'we're four boys in our corduroys / we're not terrific but we're competent' which I often sing to myself - any mention of corduroy works for me.
'Legal Man' like TIJAMRS above also available on Push Barman EP collection

Hilariously of course B&S won the Best Newcomer BRIT award in 1999 through smart mobilisation of their fanclub. Not too many of the band turned up - Stuart Murdoch certainly did not. I think Mick Cooke and maybe Richard and Chris (or maybe Stevie?) were there - not too sure, again I was pretty drunk. But this time I managed to be nice to the band - my work chums and I made it back to their hotel room post Brits. It was a scene of moderate rock n roll excess and I think perhaps a little embarrassment (as well as some triumphalism) on the band's part. I kept quiet about the Whole Lotta Rosie incident.

'I'm A Cuckoo' from Dear Catastrophe Waitress their first release for new label Rough Trade. Produced by Trevor Horn with unsurprisingly a bigger, brighter sound.

'The Blues Are Still Blue' from The Life Pursuit probably their most varied stylistically, and my favourite album from 2005. Hopefully a new album will come this year.

Birdsong

One good thing to come out of being unemployed has been spending more time with my kids. Other good things have been Wetherspoons selling IPA at 99p a pint, realising I can survive without an internet-enabled mobile phone (actually without a call-enabled mobile), and well, that's about it I think.
I've been doing the school run some days - my boy Billy and his friend James run that is, being chased by the Poo Monster (guess who?), and I walk briskly, occasionally roaring. It's quite a nice walk. Where we live is quite hilly and green - a lot of trees around. So one of life's pleasures is walking to school to do the pick up on my own and listening to the birdsong. I've walked up the hill hundreds of times but it was only a couple of weeks ago that I actually took time to listen to the birds and hear the beauty of their various songs.

The Beatles 'Blackbird' from the White Album of course

Alasdair Roberts 'Waxwing' from the superb The Amber Gatherers album, stark & beautiful folk delivered in Roberts' strong Highland burr. Actually I've no idea if he's from the Highlands or Islands - but he sounds like he should be - his subject matter is concerned with the natural and the ancient rather than, for example, Glasgow tenements

Jimi Hendrix 'Little Wing' my favourite Hendrix track from the incomparable Axis: Bold As Love album

Neil Young 'Birds'. Neil's probably been in my Top 3 fave artists for nearly 20 years now. Birds is on After The Gold Rush which I'd recommend to anyone wanting to dive in to his somewhat scary looking catalogue



I suppose birdsong must have been the first music that our prehistoric ancestors became attuned to appreciate, before we could even make the most basic instruments ourselves. I couldn't call myself a twitcher (not sure I'd want to) but because I've been spending time at home I have been keeping an eye out for the birds in our garden, saving leftover food scraps for them and I can now recognise a bullfinch, amongst a few other species. It's very pretty. It does you good to have a few moments with nature like this.


Oh and 'Birdsong' is also a fantasticly moving World War 1 novel by Sebastian Faulks - also recommended. If you are actually interested in learning more about birds I'd also recommend Consider The Birds by Colin Tudge, an author whose enthusiasm for his subject is infectious.

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

I've been job 'seeking' for 12 long weeks now. It's a depressing business. But at least my home life has not degenerated into Boys from the Blackstuff madness, substance & spousal abuse. Not yet anyway. Could be any week now though. I've uploaded my CV to a load of job websites and recruitment agencies mostly to very little reaction. I've grown to detest the empty pleasantries & mock cheerfulness of recruitment consultants. 'Not a great time to be looking' and 'Something will come up soon' has been the recurring advice from friends. Oh and 'Don't go mad' - that was a useful one.

Recently though things started to look up when I got an interview with a music company that went well. I liked them, they seem to like me, positive signs are forthcoming. Now I'm waiting to hear back, praying I haven't got my hopes up, that I haven't misread the signs. It's not the despair that gets to you it's the hope. One song has been going round my head the past few days: Tom Petty's The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

I've been trying to think of some 'Waiting' songs - there's fewer than I'd have thought in my collection and I wasn't going to post the Velvets or the Doors - a bit too obvious

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 'The Waiting'

Thin Lizzy 'Waiting For An Alibi'

Jayhawks 'Waiting For The Sun'

ZZ Top 'Waitin' For The Bus'

Yeasayer 'Wait for the Summer'

Definitely one of my best recent discoveries, Yeasayer's All Hour Cymbals album is a mix of Brooklyn hipster indie a la TV on the Radio, and elements of African & Middle Eastern sounds, which sounds very worthy but they also remember that what's most important is the song.

A lot of (very good) classic rock taken from some superior albums, but only one track from this century! Bands nowadays just aren't interested in waiting it seems. Perhaps this is due to our gotta-have-it-now, spend now & stick-it-on-the-credit-card, consume-or-die culture. Perhaps not.

Buy Petty, Thin Lizzy, Jayhawks, da Top & Yeasayer

Here's a couple of classic country waiting for train songs just as an added bonus

Jimmie Rodgers 'Waiting For A Train'

Guy Clark 'Desperadoes Waiting For A Train'

Herve 'Ghetto Bass'

Herve (how do I add the accent?) or Joshua Harvey is a producer & remixer of many guises, recording as The Count & Sinden (my personal fave) and a host of others I can't be bothered to list but that feature prominently on his Ghetto Bass mix compilation. He's remixed Lily Allen, Chemical Brothers & The Prodigy recently - he's become the producer de jour if you need a brain crunchingly ravey yet bass-y remix. Well done him.
It's difficult to render in text the ear mangling amazing riff / noises that Herve manages to wrest from his machines, swawohh wammm maybe? but all the tracks have - as the title of the mix suggests - gigantic dancefloor friendly basslines. The frentic pace slows a little on CD2 with some darker dubsteppy tracks from Darqwan & Skream - though for the dubstep layperson, ie me it never gets to the more somnolent moments of a Burial that you might expect. Overall it's a great melange of electro, dubstep, breaks & techno and there's a superb Herve remix of Human Resource's classic 'Dominator'. Though it did give my wife a headache.

Project Bassline 'Drop The Pressure' The Count's Conquistador Remix
Darqwan 'Said The Spider'
Skream 'Filth'
Chase & Status 'Eastern Jam'
Buraka Som Sistema 'Kalemba' Reso's Aguardente Remix

Buy Ghetto Bass

This Is Outsider Music

Yeah you can take yer Moondogs and Daniel Johnstons, here's some AMAZING (in several ways) outsider music. Record companies get a lot of unsolicited music sent to them for consideration. Mostly (probably 95%+), it is bog standard, generic & derivative. It commits the cardinal sin of not warranting any reaction from the listener apart from a 'Next!'. This is not because people working in the industry are more cynical than the average music fan - they may be, but nearly everyone I knew was also a lot more passionate about music than the average fan, with a lower dross threshold.

Very occasionally some music arrives to which the only reaction can be 'What is that?!?'. Karl Matthews is a London based musician, with a powerful love for Eastenders and dub reggae, who has combined these two elements into a singular musical statement. Somewhere between an unmediated running commentary on his life ('Katherine') and a surreal stream of consciousness take on various Eastenders plots, with particular emphasis on the Slater clan.

When I first heard his first 12" I laughed until I was sore. I don't mean that in a cruel way: though the production is naive, the subject matter bizarre and the playing basic, I really loved it. I think Karl may have been making music as therapy but I want him to know that he's brought joy into a lot of people's lives.

I guess naivety is exactly what people find so attractive in so called 'outsider music' because most music is made for a target audience and has an element of careerism. This may have been aspiring to commercial success in a theoretical way too (why else send it to a record company?) but the execution was such that only those with rather weird tastes could appreciate. So I hope you do cos it's genius.

Karl Matthews 'Kat Slater'
Karl Matthews 'Katherine (White Lady)'
Karl Matthews 'Ash Corrina'
Karl Matthews 'Gary Hobbs'

Nearly 10 years before Karl Matthews, I first heard 'Market Value' by M.E.N. It was sent on cassette to a different music company I worked for, with a nice picture of a market fruit stall on the cover. I understand 'Market Value' had been submitted by a Nigerian doctor from Ipswich who got rather narked when we would not send his tape back after refusing him his shot at success. We didn't send demos back as a matter of policy but there was no way that a piece of music like this, which had brought us such pleasure & amusement, could be given up.

It's not as musically ambitious as Matthews, in fact the keyboard seems to be set to 'winsome' and the cymbal splashes could be played on a toy drum kit. But the glory of Market Value is in the lyrics. Sung in the most sincere, quavering voice it's an unromantic but loving paen to the author's daughter. Clearly written by someone for whom English was not their first language, I love the way he sings 'higher', and that the qualities that he sees fit to sing about aren't often celebrated in the Western canon - punctuality, resourcefulness and an ability to get along with workmates. I'm actually always quite touched when I listen to it and it ALWAYS makes me smile

M.E.N. 'Market Value'

Ever since you were little you've been quite exceptional

Hard working & courteous, very smart & loving

Never got yourself in trouble at school or at home

That's why...

chorus

Your market value keeps going higher

Higher & higher, higher & higher

Everything you do is pushing it higher

Higher & Higher

You are one in a million with such market value

Now all grown up you are still exceptional

A wide range of hobbies, good looking but modest

A good sense of humour, very kind & loving

That's why

chorus

At your place of work you are such an asset

Quite smart & resourceful, very punctual & helpful

Get along well with your workmates

Hard working & honest, that's why

chorus

Detroit. Sort Of

So we've had a Baltimore post, now time for Detroit. Perhaps I should make my blog theme post-industrial Rust Belt cities? Cleveland I think I could do... Anyone got any suggestions?

It should go without saying how much brilliant music has come from Detroit. This year is Motown's 50th anniversary of course - what a legacy! No doubt I'll do a (very long) Motown post in the future, but of course there's also the Stooges and the space funk of Detroit Techno - music very much rooted in the place where it was conceived.

But I really didn't know I'd be blogging about Detroit this time. I wanted to talk about a new electro / indie-tronica artist Deastro who I've just come across. I've been listening to the album Keeper's for a few months but it was only when I came to try & find out a little out it online that I found he's a Detroit producer. The album has been supported by eMusic and it's certainly worth a listen with a somewhat schizo mix of styles, opaque, slightly mystical lyrics, and an emphasis on songs rather than the dancefloor. Reminds me of Cut Copy a bit. Deastro has now apparently signed with Ghostly International which sounds like a good fit to me.

Deastro 'The Shaded Forests'

Deastro 'Lightpowered'

Buy Keeper's here

Similar in feel is which has been passed on to me by my brother - his own production. Here's what he says: Falory 'O is John Sweeney - a spiralline melodian from Belfast. Writing and recording in his living room he sends musical transmissions to Celeste and The Rest - the Party Beings. It may be a good party, it may be a bad party or it may be a rude party.

I guess it's difficult to judge objectively the work of someone you know but I think this is a real interesting, tricksy production. Pity he's not from Detroit. Would love to hear some comments

Falory O 'My Machine'

When I first moved to London 15 years ago, I thought that guitar music was history, that the future lay with machine music. (What a dick!) This was before dance music had become the commercialised soundtrack to a Yates's Saturday night, still felt 'culturally important' even, when 'experimental' was not code for unlistenable (personally speaking). I remember wondering what all the fuss was with Oasis & Blur - they were just recycling the riffs and attitude of the past. Couldn't people see there was nothing NEW in this? My heroes were boldly questing for new sounds, taking us devotees on long (maybe too long) psychedelic journeys into our own (head) space.

Underground Resistance were a mysterious Detroit cult with the fiercest, funkiest, spaciest techno and a confrontational attitude at odds with the easy going, druggy, apolitical UK dance scene. At the time I don't think I was ever clear about their personnel, though certainly it included 'Mad' Mike Banks and Jeff Mills but it wasn't about personalities, it was about the manifesto & the music. The manifesto was a load of tosh ''change by sonic revolution" - I could see that even then - but the music still stands up. The music sounds amazing in fact. Futuristic and coldly beautiful

Underground Resistance 'First Galactic Baptist Church'

Underground Resistance 'Hi Tech Jazz'

Buy Underground Resistance music here

N-N-N-N-Notorious

Yesterday I was in a school. In a class of 13 year olds. More on that later. One boy kept repeating the chorus 'Notorious' from the Duran Duran record of 1986. What's that all about I thought briefly. Has the 80s revival gone so in depth that even the most banal of Duran's singles are now common currency? Then I remembered seeing the film poster for 'Notorious', the new biopic of Biggie Smalls / Notorious BIG, and everything fell into place. Just as another 13 year old took up the refrain.

On Sunday mornings in the mid-90s I would get up at 6am - which was very early for me to rise, back then when I had a social life and always went out on Saturday nights. I'd get the tube to Holborn and walk to Leather Lane, to the record shop I worked at. On Sundays we'd run a stall at East Street market off the Walworth Road in south east London, so I'd load up the transit van with thousands of CDs, blank tapes & VHS and off we'd trundle through the City. London's financial heart was dead at this time of the week and I loved speeding through it, looking at the architecture, doing my own version of the black cab drivers' Knowledge, working out how the various streets met up together.

We'd get there to set up at 7.30am and we'd have a completely different clientele to that of the store - probably 90% black - lots of Africans & Caribbeans. There were loads of albums that we'd sell in the hundreds - back then when folk still bought CDs: Buju Banton 'Til Shiloh', Blackstreet 'Another Level', Destiny's Child 'Writings on the Wall', D'Angelo 'Brown Sugar', 2Pac 'Me Against The World', Mary J Blige 'My Life' are a few examples that maybe didn't have a lot of mainstream profile at that time but that we'd sell 10-25 of every single week for a year. For me it was an introduction into modern R&B and reggae, and it was great. Notorious BIG's 'Ready To Die' was another such album. Biggie's mic skills are just fantastic, his flow was wonderful, great rhymes. With a hint of (but not too much) pop sheen added by the then Sean 'Puffy' Combs. Sometimes the subject matter could get to me - he was after all a violent, drug pushing, lucre-driven (maybe) misogynist. But I could still rationalise that as there were some amazing tracks on the album. Here's my favourite:

Notorious BIG 'Juicy'

Listening to Radio 1 driving home today there was a review of the movie on Edith Bowman's show. It wasn't a great review and comment was made on what a nasty piece of work Biggie was personally. And then they played 'Mo' Money Mo' Problems' and I could forgive him everything.

I just love this track. Driven by a sample from Diana Ross's classic 'I'm Coming Out' (produced by Chic's Nile Rogers & Bernard Edwards - which remind me I need to get that 'Diana' album) it's just pop perfection. That said, coming from someone undergoing a period of unemployment I can categorically state that the premise of the title is FACTUALLY INCORRECT. Personally I'm finding that problems tend to increase exponentially as revenue entering the home decreases. But that's just my personal maths, I'm not a platinum selling hip hop star. And I'm alive. Anyway it still does the business for me - I had the window wound down, radio blasting like an ASBO kid in his Clio twin turbo. Unfortunately I only have the clean edit.

Notorious BIG 'Mo' Money Mo' Problems'

Buy Notorious BIG music at Amazon

Here's a few other tracks that remind me of that era

Genius w/ D'Angelo 'Cold World'

Bobby Brown 'Two Can Play That Game'

Mariah Carey w/ Ol' Dirty Bastard 'Fantasy' Remix

Pet Shop Boys: Pop Genius

A majority of pop music is drivel of course. A majority of most things are drivel. Most pop music treats it's audience without respect, and seems to be produced for the sole purpose of making money. It's very difficult to make money from launching pop acts. I've seen this in my professional life, hundreds of thousands spent to garner a chart position of #42. You can spend as much as you like but if the song doesn't resonate with folk it won't matter.



But the best exponents of pop like Abba, Girls Aloud, Madonna in her prime (oh yeah they all eventually go off the boil) and hundreds of others combine great sing-a-long tunes, arresting image, memorable lyrics and a respect for their audience. It's not controversial to laud these particular acts anymore - Girls Aloud are cool now, and Abba's greatness has been well & truly recognised. But despite much critical acclaim, it's always been viewed, in certain company, as a bit suspect to express a love for the Pet Shop Boys.



I love their image: Chris Lowe, silent & motionless in the background, occasionally stabbing a keyboard, Neil Tennant self contained, suited, satirical, arching an eyebrow. They refused to play the usual role of electronic pop groups, bouncing around, being 'up', expressing the most general uplifting emotions. PSB always were interested in the specific, in multi-layered adult themes rather than simple slogans. Their first single's a masterpiece:







Pet Shop Boys 'West End Girls'

Of course eventually they left behind this dowdiness for those crazy designer outfits. They were certainly striking, and I guess showed that they had a sense of humour. I liked the whole anti-rock thing, though it was implied rather than spelt out - the way that they pointed out the inherent ridiculousness of the whole theatre of rock performance. The impossibility of authenticity and recreating it night after night on stage. Neil Tennant spoke of their 'Imperial Phase', when they could do no wrong. These tracks come from that period - just perfect pop.

Pet Shop Boys 'Suburbia'

Pet Shop Boys 'It's A Sin'

'Being Boring' is my favourite PSB song, in fact one of my all time faves. Apparently an elegy for those struck by the AIDS virus, I find it very touching, yet I'm not sure why. There's certainly a melancholy to it, and I'm always a sucker for that, but maybe it's just the strings programming.


In a world where 'gay' is used as a synonym for 'crap', perhaps it was their perceived gayness (Neil Tennant only out-ed himself quite late in their career) which meant PSB weren't treated with the respect that rock bands of the time were - at least by a lot of my contemporaries. The fact is that there was always a universality to their music, and it's good to hear they are to be recognised at the BRITS this month.





Pet Shop Boys 'Being Boring'





Pet Shop Boys 'Jealousy'

Buy Pet Shop Boys at Amazon