I've been here before
The Dwarfs are back to haunt me.
This isn't a psychotic episode, honest. Trust me.
Over 20 years ago I stood in a record cutting room while two records
were cut. Mine/Ours, the Shoot! EP, and because the guy who was organizing it had a bit of
time. A record he had licensed from the states The squawling 70 seconds
of execration the followed showed up the limitations of our polite English
indie music .
That noise was The Dwarfs.
It did at the time shake my confidence more than I think I've ever admitted.
I've kept a bit of my eye on them ever since. I wouldn't want to know them
or even meet them just too “out there”. Too “Rock'n'Roll”.
In an interview with Simon Reynolds in his new book, Pete Thomas from Pere Ubu states the English just cannot rock. And I agree, we cannot do, the MC5, The Stooges
or god help us The Dwarfs.
We're too filled with irony, and we just don't believe in, or get “Rock's” cathartic
qualities. I worry more about the word cathartic than I do about where the next
big bag of drugs are coming from. Theory proved.
So.......
20 odd years on, contemplating all things band and newness. I stumble across
The Dwarfs on Spotify. By my reckoning four different formats on, and at least the fifth
imminent death of the music industry later.
The Dwarfs - still the same short appalling noise – still stunning - still no change....
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Heist
Indulge me with this. I’m going to attempt to link two albums, three books an old copy of Jackie, and two and a half litres of local cider. The consumption of the latter may affect the former though.
This sort of consolidates some of the thoughts I've been having recently.
Anyway, Cd 1; Bollnas Wolverines' Abandoned sort of out there, er abandoned in the ether, leaving us a little non pulsed at it’s success, or lack of. Or really what anyone thought. Still thinking where to go next with promotion. So Cd 2 arrives it’s the new Yo La Tengo album, and loathed as I am to admit it, it crossed my cheap mind to just record it off Spotify.
So an Album we don’t seen to be able to give away, and an album I really should buy.
One out there floating like a lost child and the other about to be consumed by the child catcher.
Cd’s these days are really cheap – I know it’s all to do with downloads and the suchlike – but compared to records when I started buying then in the mid 70’s they are seriously cheap. If I could be bothered to do some lazy Internet research (or LIR) I’ll tell you how cheap, more of LIR later. But, thinking about it singles have gone up in price. Used to be about 70p for two sides of crackly warpy plastic ecstasy.
Now, about £1.50 for two tracks from itunes.
So before I digress even more, rushed into the local record shop and purchased Cd 2 before rushing up the A6 to get some cider. Both are going down very very well. So it’s a plea for shopping local, I suppose. The quality of the cider can be attested by the quality of my gibberish.
But I have to admit, this isn't the best Yo La Tengo Album.
3 books and a copy of Jackie. I have read two music books recently that have made me want to spit out my ground up teeth. Lowdown by Paul Lester. The Story of Wire- as it is subtitled - is a bit of a hack job, indifferently written, lazily researched, and shockingly proof read. Whatever people say, one tends to produce “Art” for one’s perceived audience. Hang round for a while on the Pink Flag message board to find out how witty erudite and intelligent Wire fans are. This book sells us short. I was amused to find some more of Paul Lester’s writing in a Music Club CD “Blockbuster – The Best of Sweet”. New Grub Street, hack journalism and Edwin Readon still seem to exist.
Whereas issue 62 of the 33 and a third series; “Pink Flag” by Wilson Neate really does the job. Managing to tell the story of one of the worlds best albums, and the history of a band who are much more “Rock’n’Roll” than they would ever care to admit. The work of a true fan.
The most annoying book I have read recently is “From CBGB to the Roundhouse”
Music venues though the years, by Tim Burrows. Well it sort of does what is says on the front cover. But not very well. I’ve just looked at my copy, I stuck a bit of paper in every page where facts were wrong or the writing was so bad it lost meaning, or after a bit of LIR myself I was starting to find the web articles the book was cut and pasted from. Until….
You get to the end and there are two fascinating, well-written and involved chapters on the 02 Arena and the boutique gig circuit in New York.
Was the book conceived around these pieces? “Give us book by next Thursday” go the publishers, “we’ll give you some money and then we might release your children”.
Finding 10,000 words by next week or it’s the death of your first-born. Humm…
So did Paul Lester end up there, squeezed by a publisher who wanted product, and product now? And how do I know about his Sweet writing –how good are Sweet!*
Did Wilson Neate spend more time on a labour of love than the advance deserved?
So to Jackie; a magazine for teenage girls from the 1970’s. A facsimile was given away recently with The Guardian. Dated the 15th Febuary 1975. My 14th Birthday by the way.
The stunning thing about it is the sheer volume of words, every page densely packed with text. If we are lucky the writers were paid by the word. Music was expensive but words were cheap.
But…..
Whoever produced them, got paid.
So…
Where are we now, well, “it was easy, it was cheap, go and do it”.
A much repeated mantra from my youth, and still my idiom. What we are doing loosing is the taste filter, where do we look to tell us what is worthwhile? If these arbiters of taste are not making money, why should they bother ? And where does that leave us ?
* In another life I have spent a few German lunch times and several beers with the magisterial Andy Scott . The times I dealt with Brian Connoly – file under Rock dream gone wrong..
This sort of consolidates some of the thoughts I've been having recently.
Anyway, Cd 1; Bollnas Wolverines' Abandoned sort of out there, er abandoned in the ether, leaving us a little non pulsed at it’s success, or lack of. Or really what anyone thought. Still thinking where to go next with promotion. So Cd 2 arrives it’s the new Yo La Tengo album, and loathed as I am to admit it, it crossed my cheap mind to just record it off Spotify.
So an Album we don’t seen to be able to give away, and an album I really should buy.
One out there floating like a lost child and the other about to be consumed by the child catcher.
Cd’s these days are really cheap – I know it’s all to do with downloads and the suchlike – but compared to records when I started buying then in the mid 70’s they are seriously cheap. If I could be bothered to do some lazy Internet research (or LIR) I’ll tell you how cheap, more of LIR later. But, thinking about it singles have gone up in price. Used to be about 70p for two sides of crackly warpy plastic ecstasy.
Now, about £1.50 for two tracks from itunes.
So before I digress even more, rushed into the local record shop and purchased Cd 2 before rushing up the A6 to get some cider. Both are going down very very well. So it’s a plea for shopping local, I suppose. The quality of the cider can be attested by the quality of my gibberish.
But I have to admit, this isn't the best Yo La Tengo Album.
3 books and a copy of Jackie. I have read two music books recently that have made me want to spit out my ground up teeth. Lowdown by Paul Lester. The Story of Wire- as it is subtitled - is a bit of a hack job, indifferently written, lazily researched, and shockingly proof read. Whatever people say, one tends to produce “Art” for one’s perceived audience. Hang round for a while on the Pink Flag message board to find out how witty erudite and intelligent Wire fans are. This book sells us short. I was amused to find some more of Paul Lester’s writing in a Music Club CD “Blockbuster – The Best of Sweet”. New Grub Street, hack journalism and Edwin Readon still seem to exist.
Whereas issue 62 of the 33 and a third series; “Pink Flag” by Wilson Neate really does the job. Managing to tell the story of one of the worlds best albums, and the history of a band who are much more “Rock’n’Roll” than they would ever care to admit. The work of a true fan.
The most annoying book I have read recently is “From CBGB to the Roundhouse”
Music venues though the years, by Tim Burrows. Well it sort of does what is says on the front cover. But not very well. I’ve just looked at my copy, I stuck a bit of paper in every page where facts were wrong or the writing was so bad it lost meaning, or after a bit of LIR myself I was starting to find the web articles the book was cut and pasted from. Until….
You get to the end and there are two fascinating, well-written and involved chapters on the 02 Arena and the boutique gig circuit in New York.
Was the book conceived around these pieces? “Give us book by next Thursday” go the publishers, “we’ll give you some money and then we might release your children”.
Finding 10,000 words by next week or it’s the death of your first-born. Humm…
So did Paul Lester end up there, squeezed by a publisher who wanted product, and product now? And how do I know about his Sweet writing –how good are Sweet!*
Did Wilson Neate spend more time on a labour of love than the advance deserved?
So to Jackie; a magazine for teenage girls from the 1970’s. A facsimile was given away recently with The Guardian. Dated the 15th Febuary 1975. My 14th Birthday by the way.
The stunning thing about it is the sheer volume of words, every page densely packed with text. If we are lucky the writers were paid by the word. Music was expensive but words were cheap.
But…..
Whoever produced them, got paid.
So…
Where are we now, well, “it was easy, it was cheap, go and do it”.
A much repeated mantra from my youth, and still my idiom. What we are doing loosing is the taste filter, where do we look to tell us what is worthwhile? If these arbiters of taste are not making money, why should they bother ? And where does that leave us ?
* In another life I have spent a few German lunch times and several beers with the magisterial Andy Scott . The times I dealt with Brian Connoly – file under Rock dream gone wrong..
Gabba Gabba Hey
There has been a bit of correspondence in The Word magazine about what I was mulling over in the last post. Basically Andrew Harrison's column in Issue 80 page 50 states, that “Good stuff costs Money”. Whether it be music or journalism. If you want something for nothing you are going to end up with nothing or nothing of a quality to be worthwile. To a point I agree I'll come back to this at a later date. What is happening though is I'm starting to view The Word as, one of my gate keepers. I should really dislike the magazine run and edited by people on dark days I view as the James May and Richard Hammond of the music world. Not evil enough to be a Jeremy Clarkson, just annoying enough. I'm my youth they were the last and least charismatic presenters of the Old Grey Whistle Test, a distinction of sorts.
I'm starting to really respect their damn magazine, despite their sulky dislike of Punk Rock. The best columnists around, not giving album reviews a star marking.They are making you think for yourself. A scary notion in modern Rock and Roll and the journalism that goes with it. Oh! and also the biggest article I've seen on Yo La Tengo in any of the monthly glossies. They also managed something I though would never happen. I'm part of the generation that doesn't listen to The Beatles. They split up the year I started listening to music, and come 1977, the year I was 16, and the age that defines your musical tastes, they were dead and buried. Shindig Magazine – another gatekeeper, summed them up for me recently, good but over rated. My heart sinks when I'm presented with another glossy cover of the fab four, I believe they add thousands to sales. Still a recent copy of The Word had them on the cover, and the articles were so good I actually listened again to The Beatles. There is no great epiphany, still think they are OK, if over rated. Anything that makes you re-evaluate long held beliefs and or bigotries must be good journalism.
I'm starting to really respect their damn magazine, despite their sulky dislike of Punk Rock. The best columnists around, not giving album reviews a star marking.They are making you think for yourself. A scary notion in modern Rock and Roll and the journalism that goes with it. Oh! and also the biggest article I've seen on Yo La Tengo in any of the monthly glossies. They also managed something I though would never happen. I'm part of the generation that doesn't listen to The Beatles. They split up the year I started listening to music, and come 1977, the year I was 16, and the age that defines your musical tastes, they were dead and buried. Shindig Magazine – another gatekeeper, summed them up for me recently, good but over rated. My heart sinks when I'm presented with another glossy cover of the fab four, I believe they add thousands to sales. Still a recent copy of The Word had them on the cover, and the articles were so good I actually listened again to The Beatles. There is no great epiphany, still think they are OK, if over rated. Anything that makes you re-evaluate long held beliefs and or bigotries must be good journalism.
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