My new favourite lyric – Half Man Half Biscuit

‘I want a suntan not Vashti Bunyan’

from Totnes Bickering Fair by Half Man Half Biscuit

Genius!

Glastonbury lineup revealed

With the release of the Glastonbury lineup this week I breathed a large sigh of relief. Not only did the list of bands seem distinctly average, it was almost as if the Eavises had managed to compile a billing of some of the most nauseating guitar acts to appear in the last few years: among them The Fratellis, The Hoosiers, The Wombats, The Enemy, The Courteeners and Pigeon Detectives and Scouting For Girls. If you wanted to get me to eat my own skin then force me to listen to these seven shocking excuses for bands and I’d be begging you for a knife and fork.

 

One of the big controversies about this year’s festival, even before tickets went on sale, was the announcement of US rap behemoth Jay-Z as headliner. Supposedly the idea was that the festival was getting too middle aged and middle class; it needed some fresh young blood in the audience and the way to attract it was with this “hip hop” thing the kids are talking about. Which begs the question why does the lineup include The Feeling, KT Tunstall, James Blunt, Will Young. Crowded House and Shakin’ Stevens? Shakin’ Stevens for God’s sake! You may as well paint him white and lay him down on the tarmac now. This isn’t even going to attract the Observer Music Monthly Crowd. This is pure supermarket CD shoppers’ fare. Everything seems to suggest that Michael Eavis is a hypocrite or just plain stupid. Maybe he’s just getting forgetful.

 

As I looked down the list of the three main stages (Pyramid, Other, John Peel) I could find a mere six artists I would actually want to see. ‘I just saved myself 160-plus quid’ I thought. But Glastonbury is so much more than its headliners, more than the big names, more than the main stages. The more I look around the full lineup the more I realise that I could have a fantastic time. On the smaller stages I could spend the weekend in the blissful company of Mystery Jets, My Latest Novel, The National, Patrick Watson, Make Model, Santogold, Edwyn Collins, Crystal Castles, Jamie T, MGMT, Battles, Laura Marling, The Futureheads, British Sea Power, Friendly Fires and Billy Bragg. Or just a load of artists I’ve never heard of.

And it’s this diversity that makes the festival special. It’s the fact that ultra-hip teens can catch their fare of obscure electronica and forty-somethings can come to listen to that nice chappie with the floppy hair, and grown men can relive their drunken youth to the sounds of Britpop past and an old hippy can get high in the stone circle while another old hippy strums a broken guitar and all just a few fields apart. The fact that it attempts to represent the near totality of modern British music (although it doesn’t quite manage to cover all bases) is what allows Glastonbury to retain its status as the UK’s and maybe the world’s premier music event. Maybe I should have bought a ticket.

Don’t just hate racism, take a stand against it

Today, London’s biggest ever anti-racism event was held in Victoria Park, 30 years after the original Rock Against Racism movement was started. Love Music Hate Racism attracted around 100,000 people in a musical celebration of diversity and a defiant stand against prejudice and discrimination. It is by coincidence that I make the following post but my timing couldn’t be better.

 

This week, like most other registered London voters, I received a booklet for the mayoral elections featuring each candidate’s campaign advert. The first advert in the booklet is for the British National Party candidate, Richard Barnbrook, and he begins by asking: “Remember London the way it used to be? Clean, friendly and safe.” I had to laugh when I read this; I mean, when was London ever, in its 2000-year history, clean and safe? However, while this is a ridiculous notion, racism in all its forms is not a subject to taken lightly.

 

The BNP remain, thankfully, a marginal, extremist party with only a relatively tiny proportion of voter support. It promotes ideas that are abhorrent to the vast majority of British citizens, and recent internal wrangling has hopefully damaged its party structure and campaigning abilities. But it is easy to fall into the rose-tinted nostalgic way of thinking that is preyed upon by their mayoral manifesto. Despite all the benefits of 21^st century Western civilisation, we have probably all wondered at least fleetingly if maybe things used to better in some way.

 

The danger of an organisation like the BNP is that they play on these feelings while attacking failings of mainstream politics and even suggesting a surprising number of seemingly left-leaning, liberal and green policies (workers co-operatives, promotion of democratic participation, pollution charges etc.). They claim to know how to improve almost every aspect of our lives. Indeed, who wouldn’t want better housing, transport and healthcare, less crime and lower taxes? Even my British Asian housemate admitted to me that she found herself agreeing with some of the things they say.

 

Political parties by their very existence tend to hold that they have the answer to making the country better. But most parties want to provide all these things to all British citizens: everyone who was born here, everyone who has fulfilled the legal and social requirement to earn citizenship. The BNP wants to deny those rights to people based on where their parents and grandparents were born, what colour skin they have and what religion they follow, whilst “encouraging” them to leave the country. This is unequivocally wrong.

 

Most people reading this would never dream of voting for the far right, but there are people on the borderline who could be persuaded when the BNP’s case is presented without serious rebuttal. The BNP attempt to cover up their racial prejudice and discrimination with their own “utopian” social vision that draws on a number of ideas many would like to support (reduced immigration, tougher sentencing, promotion of British manufacturing etc.). They try to present a respectable, even tolerant face that justifies its position on supposed scientific and historical “facts”.

 

That’s why we shouldn’t laugh off the threat of the BNP and their ilk. Even though their arguments are ignorant, naïve and bigoted, without an opposition force to expose their flawed reasoning and questionable intentions, the BNP could gain sway with those who are attracted to the patriotic parts of their ideology and fail to see the true enormity of what the they stand for. The BNP’s influence has already crept into local politics and, if unchecked, has the potential to do so further. Hating racism isn’t enough. We have to take an active stand against it, even when it is difficult or awkward to do so. I’m ashamed to admit that I recently failed to pull someone up on using the word “coloured” and on making negative generalisations about other racial and national groups. Next time I hope I will have more courage. We must be vigilant in engaging in debate and opposing and countering racist thinking wherever it may rear its ugly head.

 

http://www.lovemusichateracism.com

Red – Guillemots

There are a few rare golden moments in your life when one particular record makes you feel like nothing ever has before or ever will again. When an album raises in you such a full range of emotions that everyday life seems greyer as a result. When a song manages to encapsulate your exact feelings at that time in such a way, it’s as if the music is resounding at a frequency that was created by God (or the Gods or Fate or whatever) just for you.

 

This all sounds rather hyperbolic I realise, but Guillemots’ debut album Through The Windowpane had such a deep impact on me that I feel it’s deserving. Although I had immediately fallen in love with the glorious euphoria of their singles, the full album was more a grower. After several months of occasional listening I came back to Through The Windowpane and wondered what I had been missing before. If anything had thrown me it’s that debut albums just aren’t supposed to sound like that. They don’t begin with a bold, radio-unfriendly orchestral ballad, run through a gambit of unique and yet accessible songs, and finish with an eleven-minute epic masterpiece of melodic madness. It was like nothing else I’d heard and yet almost everything I could want from an album was there in those twelve songs.

 

What compounded my adoration was my situation at the time. I had made the decision to travel the world, saying goodbye, for a while, to my girlfriend, family and friends. I was on an exciting adventure but alone in the world, happy to be there but facing constant trepidation. And something in those songs seemed to speak to me, empathise with me, console me and reassure me. The album deals with love, loss, fear, departure and travel to new places. My circumstances put me in the perfect place to receive each line that magically flowed from Fyfe Dangerfield’s lips. Too many nights to count, I fell asleep with his beautiful voice ringing around my head, thinking of those I had left behind. At times I was terrified I had made the wrong decision but that music was my constant, faithful companion.

 

Of course with such great love comes the fear that it may end. Or, when you’re talking about music at least, that this kind of reaction might not be reproduced in the future. However Guillemots are not a band who were ever going to stand still or to try to recreate something they have already succeeded so admirably in doing. It’s no surprise then that Red has been criticised by some in the mainstream press for making inroads into genres far removed from their original brand of orchestral pop. Much has been made of the contemporary RnB influences with names like Prince, Timbaland and even, err, Girls Aloud trotted out at regular occurrences, and much of this comment has been fair and even useful. ‘Big Dog’ is the most obvious stopping point with its booty shakin’ rhythms, falsetto vocal turns and sharp production. There’s also ‘Last Kiss,’ the first album track with lead vocals provided by the band’s double-bassist Aristazabal Hawkes. Arista’s soft feminine vocals introduce an entirely new quality to Guillemots’ sound, and though it would at first be easy to dismiss it as something of a filler track, a closer listen reveals it as something more serious and one of the band’s most dancefloor-oriented songs to date. In fact it’s fair to say that Guillemots don’t have any filler tracks; indeed one of the most fantastic things about this band is that you know they never do anything without giving it their all and that they’ll have debated into the small hours before putting each song to bed. Even if the results aren’t 100 percent successful from a listener’s point of view, it’s certainly never down to want of trying on the group’s part.

 

   ‘Get Over It’ – Guillemots

 

 

Despite the supposed emphasis on RnB style pop, Red by no means stops there and there’s so much more to these tracks than any kind of Justin Timberlake take off. At a recent live performance, the band produced a heavier, more guitar-based sound than I’d ever heard them perform before, with even ‘Big Dog’ featuring more rock and roll debauchery than anything you might expect to be compared with Timbaland. (For more on that gig take a look at my review for Gigwise: here). Equally a soulful sound creeps into other songs on the record (although not for the first time). ‘Falling Out of Reach’ is a clear example, beginning as an acoustic ballad and building to the sound of a lush choir. The hook on this song is gorgeous but there’s something about those backing voices that seems overdone – not over the top as such, just a little out of place and unconvincing.

 

My other criticism of ‘Falling’ takes me to the one area of Guillemots’ songwriting that has ever really irked me: the lyrics. Fyfe himself has admitted he’s not the most eloquent of writers and it’s hardly surprising to hear him say on this album that “life would be so much easier if they had no words”. Though his captivating, if abstract, imagery is largely a sufficient partner to the music (and I can even put up with “Big heart/Big hug/Big dog/That’s what I want), when you have a melody as enchanting as the chorus of ‘Falling’ there’s something simply unsatisfying about effectively hearing the same line repeated three times. It’s as if you know there should be other words there instead, better words, and they’re on the tip of your tongue but they just won’t come out. Sometimes, as with all good authors, all good musicians need a good editor. Someone to throw their lyric sheet at them and shout ‘Get out and don’t come back ‘til you’ve written something decent!’ ‘Falling Out of Reach’ is a song which offers an awful lot, but which should give so much more. Having said that, Red covers a lot of lyrical ground, extending the themes of the first album to include frustration (sexual and otherwise), hopelessness and escapism. For a record so full of upbeat sounds it’s actually pretty dark.

 

Returning to the music, there are plenty of other directions in which Red pulls the listener, from the overwhelming and menacing opening notes of ‘Kriss Kross,’ to the electronic beats of ‘Don’t Look Down.’ Non-specific Middle/Far Eastern sounds are also thrown around liberally in several places, sometimes without a strong purpose. This culminates in ‘Cockateels’, which is probably the most overproduced thing the band have ever done and arguably far too shiny for its own good (and it’s not the only song on the album you could say that about). Still, all the songs have an inherent beauty that makes it difficult for me not to lose myself in their sonic multiplicity.

 

Despite all this experimentation, Red by no means makes a clean break with the past and some of the shimmering pop of the band’s debut makes a strong appearance, as with the glistening  ‘Standing on the Last Star,’ dreamy closer ‘Take Me Home, and the sweet, if initially unmemorable ‘Words,’ which features Norwegian indie singer Ida Maria. The most familiar element throughout the album is Fyfe’s delicious and emotive voice and the gorgeous melodies that emanate from within him. There is something so comforting about his vocals, like an old friend returning home, and this is true even when the arrangements push the songs into new territory as with the bleepy ‘Clarion’. (I wasn’t that surprised to learn that the song was actually written by Fyfe in 2003 before Guillemots’ formation and has been given new life in this version.)

 

With so many different threads running through the album, the all-important question is does it all hold together? At first, the answer appears to be no and the first few tracks seem to veer wildly in all manner of directions as if the band had so many ideas rattling around they had to get them out as quickly as possible in case their collective heads explode. But things settle down and seem more cohesive as the album progresses and, on top of this, the more I listen to the album the more I begin to see how it all fits together. Once the initial shock has subsided it no longer seems like such a bumpy ride, less like a random collection of genre bending songs and more like a thoughtful statement of musical expression. The production, which can seem brash and overdone at first, gradually reveals itself to have plenty of light and shade, although it never loses its polished edges.

 

In spite of their fierce attempt to craft a big pop record, Guillemots’ lack of chart success is not that surprising: they remain too weird for the mainstream market and too slick for the alternative market. And because they’re not four skinny guys with guitars and Converse trainers, they won’t make it with the NME kids. Press reaction has varied wildly and, as Red’s rapid slide from number nine to well outside of the top 40 shows, ultimately Guillemots remain something of a niche act: brilliant to some, unworthy of such praise to others and downright repellent to a few. Even though I am well aware of the flaws that would enrage some listeners, I am placed squarely in that first bracket. I can see why many would be put off by Guillemots’ sentimental tunes and words, their vocal acrobatics, and their seemingly desperate attempts to have a bash at every genre in the musical catalouge, but I just love these songs too much to care. I can’t justly compare Red with its predecessor for that record means too much to me for a fair fight, but with their second album Guillemots have surprised not disappointed me and the more I listen, the more I discover. The band remain determined to push ideas and do so without losing those things that made them special in the first place. Their musical experimentation has always been a little self-conscious, but their weirdness has always been matched by their effortless command of melody. Even if they forcefully seek out unusual sounds, it has only ever, in my opinion, added to their abilities to create perfect pop records. With Guillemots, all the arguments in the world couldn’t stop this music from taking over my emotions. And that’s what truly great pop music is: something that has the ability to make you feel better, or feel worse, or just want to dance around, and sometimes all of the above at the same time.

Overrated: The Wombats

    The Wombats – ‘Moving to New York’: let’s hope they stay there

 

 

It would be futile to ask how the hell this band became so frustratingly popular. Their tunes are unfortunately but undeniably catchy and on numerous occasions I’ve found myself singing along or humming them out of nowhere. So why is it that when I actually hear their songs I can’t help but cringe? Musically they consist of unimaginative noughties indie rock but I can’t single them out for that. No, what really irks me about The Wombats are their lyrics. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a self-conscious bunch of simpletons so desperate to label themselves. “Look at us, look at us, we’re in a band!” they scream. ‘Look at us, look at us, we are “INDIE”!’ I know you feel chuffed with yourselves for discovering Converse trainers, stripy jumpers from Topman and Ian Curtis, but everyone you’re singing to got there first.

 

Without even the slightest hint of subtlety, wit or imagination The Wombats feel the need to point out that is ironic to dance happily to a song entitled ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ as if they’ve made some grand breakthrough in literary and social scholarship. If a singer has to tell you that ‘this is the darkest song [he] ever wrote,’ it’s probably not all that dark. Even the album title, The Wombats Present: A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation, just smacks of a desire to be seen as tortured souls whose poetic spirits have been crushed by heartbreak and the Blakean harshness of modern life. Congratulations, your girlfriend dumped you; you’re officially a man. It doesn’t mean you have to spend almost an hour whining about it, does it?

 

When I downloaded the album part of me wished I had actually bought the CD just so I could throw it out the window, hopefully hitting some skinny-jeaned scenester in the process. Bands like this are the reason illegal downloading should be preserved: so that future generations can be saved the humiliation of realising they shelled out hard-earned cash for fifty-one minutes of banal, self-indulgent tripe.

The internet: Not quite a force for good but…

It’s funny how an opinion can form so quickly and lodge itself so deeply into your brain that you’d be prepared to voraciously argue your case with people you barely know just five minutes after you’ve dreamt up the idea. And yet, with just a little actual research into the subject, you realise that you were totally wrong and had formed your thesis from knee-jerk emotional reactions instead of any kind of thoughtful contemplation. I had originally intended to write about how the internet, and more specifically the phenomenon of message boards, has led not to an open and pluralistic forum and the creation of virtual communities; but rather how it has opened a channel for all sorts of anger, hatred and personal attacks on writers, other posters and the subjects of their musings. However, the more time I spent looking for examples to back up my case, the more difficult I found it to prove this theory. After a while I realised that I would have to concede and about-face. An often mixed-blessing it may be, but the internet is undoubtedly helping to move the media aristocracy closer to something resembling a democracy.

 

The seeds of this piece were planted when I was sent a link to a now infamous blog on the Guardian website, a travel blog written by one Max Gogarty. Max was a 19 year old gap year student who had been given the incredible opportunity of recording his exploits for the Guardian travel website, but whose final output (and subject matter) was unremarkably bland and cliché. It was a harmless piece in itself but very soon garnered mass online protest, resentment and suspicion as to why such pedestrian work had been given the honour of Guardian publishing, and cries of ‘nepotism’ ensued even before the message board inhabitants had concluded (correctly) that Max was the son of another freelance travel writer with Guardian connections. I was in full agreement that, in commissioning Gogarty junior’s piece, the website had made a blinding error that showed not just carelessness, but a lack of respect for its readership. However, I couldn’t help but wince in sympathy at some of the more bilious personal attacks on the lad and the uninformed conclusions that were jumped to regarding his background and character. It was of little surprise that first the travel editor, and then the boy’s father and other Guardian writers leapt to Max’s defence, after which the direction of anger turned more firmly towards the editorial team.

 

While this incident has been well documented and debated across the web, it hardly struck me as surprising that such bitter and enraged comments should appear on a message board. Hatred abounds on the internet from terrorism promoting websites to the comments sections that follow professional album reviews (not that I am equating the two of course). Anyone who holds a deep enough loathing of something has the ability to have their voice heard. And for this reason the net can quite often seem like a particularly biased place. There must be plenty of people who think the Kaiser Chiefs album is alright or even good, but how many of them feel strongly enough in their indifference or slight favour to write about it; how many people set up a blog in order to tell the world that Kate Nash is ‘quite nice’ or that The Pigeon Detectives’ latest single is ‘really average’? On a personal level I have often put off from participating in or even reading online discussions, or from visiting certain websites, on the basis that public contributors can very often be closed-minded and downright odious. I have even had my intelligence and abilities as a writer called into question on the basis of my personal taste. Depending on which website you are visiting, you can be a snob, a scenester and a bovine populist, an idiot, a know-it-all and a twat all at the same time. And all because you thought that Klaxons’ album had a few good tracks on it.

 

But for all this negativity, stupidity and contempt for the ideas of others that does indeed exist, public comments on the internet are mostly respectful, often thoughtful, and sometimes even well written. The more I trawled the web looking for evidence that might support my initial view of cyberspace as a realm of nastiness, the more difficult it became to find decent examples. From Drowned in Sound to Pop Justice there was the odd snipe here and the odd insult there, but largely I discovered constructive criticism, intelligent observation and even some fervent praise. Returning to the wider field outside music, I looked at a cross-selection of blogs on popular news websites with similar results. Even on sites such as Holy Moly, which revel in their own indulgent mud-slinging, the venom is tempered by pertinence and occasional sympathy, and all the abuse and profanities are uttered with tongues firmly in cheeks.

 

So why was I under the mistaken impression that every message board post went around slagging off anyone who didn’t agree with them? As I’ve already touched on, the more passionate somebody feels about a topic, the more likely they are to post on it, and the more intolerant and hateful comments certainly tend to stand out. But in my case, perhaps the illusion stems from an earlier period of youthful sensitivity, when I couldn’t tell the difference between somebody saying a particular record was shit and calling me a philistine. Maybe they were calling me a philistine – I’d like to think my tastes have grown and matured since then. Whatever the cause, I did indeed develop a certain mistrust and scepticism towards the usefulness of message boards as forums for open debate.

 

However, by being forced to justify my feelings and articulate my argument I’ve come to view that ‘submit’ button as a most useful tool, within the scope of music journalism and beyond. Now anyone can (though not everyone will) make their own views known, criticise the views of others and hopefully bring greater insight and a wider vision to debate. Just because someone has a by-line doesn’t make them right, and a well-filled comment section can remind us of this. As the whole Gogarty affair highlights (and as really we knew already), people can gain positions of importance and exposure within the media not necessarily on the basis of merit or achievement. Message boards can provide the kind of checks and balances that we treasure in an open society, even if they are not always as successful as we would hope. The internet has already offered us much-needed alternatives from the establishment authority of the mainstream press, and it can go even further by emphasising the equal validity of those whose opinions aren’t endorsed through media connections. Of course there will always be idiots who bring nothing to the table except an indier-than-thou attitude and a fondness for humiliating anyone who likes Coldplay, but even they can sometimes make an interesting point. And even Coldplay fans might have something worthwhile to say once in a while.

 

That Gogarty blog in full: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/travelog/2008/02/skins_blog.html

My new favourite band: Make Model

    ‘The LSB’ – Make Model

Towards the end of last year I had the pleasure of experiencing one of the finest new bands around in Britain at the moment. I was sure I was onto a winner as this kind of shimmering indie pop rarely stays secret for long, and I was getting to ready to be all (semi-seriously) indier-than-thou with my friends and I could say “Yeah, I saw them ages ago.” It’s so rare that gets to happen, which is probably a good thing or else I’d start to think I really was cool in some kind of way. But still, it’s nice to be able to introduce people to great new music. And yet since that night I’ve heard ne’er a peep about Make Model, Barely anyway. Maybe I’ve just been looking in the wrong places. But something doesn’t quite seem right about it all. They released their first single, ‘The LSB,’ back in July of last year, have been touring for ages and are signed to EMI; but they don’t even have a Wikipedia page. So as I’ve derived so much pleasure from having their songs (one in particular) constantly on rotation in my head for the last few months, I think it’s only fair I devote some time to sharing them with you now. And a perfect way, in fact, to start my blog.

 

 

So, details. Make Model are an Indie band with a capital I: all messy hair, charity shop clothes and a youthful nervousness matching their eagerness to please. But all this fades away into some wonderful alternative shining gems of songs carried out through a fantastic triple guitar, triple vocal attack. It’s not hard to see (or hear) why their name is usually bandied around [poor but unintentional pun] in the same sentence as Broken Social Scene. An often whispery vocal style, boy-girl dynamics, and pointed guitars leading into lushness are all the kinds of things you might expect to hear on a frosty night in Toronto. But there’s also something wonderfully Scottish about Make Model that puts them in line with the likes of The Delgados and My Latest Novel, even if their vocal drawl often belies the Glaswegian origin of the band’s voices.

 

 

Make Model’s songs have a keen sophistication to them in both music and lyrics, and it probably helps that they all came with a little bit of baggage and experience, having formed from the remnants of various other groups on the Glasgow scene. But to see and hear them play you feel they have a youthful vigour in appearance and a freshness in sound that makes you think they may have only just picked up their instruments. Their perfect pop sensibility directs their wonderful arrangements to create a subtle beauty that causes you to grin from ear to ear without even realising.

 

That night at the end of last year, I left with haze in my mind and a poster and a free piece of vinyl in my hand. I rushed out on the following weekend to buy their second single ‘The Was,’ which has received many a spin on my stereo as it proclaims Make Model’s own kind of instruction manual (Objectivity earns you points with me…/interactivity breeds pornography). But it was ‘Folk Song,’ the song on that free demo disc, that has most stuck with me thanks to its anthemic melody and words as confusing in their potential interpretations as they are resolute (often the best way, I feel). “A generation has a duty to uphold a set of ethics and a music to protect.” It may represent a conservative viewpoint of a fan who has long lost touch with relevance, or it may be the words of a band more concerned with staying true to what they believe in than worrying about popularity. Or something completely different. Whichever may be the case, Make Model do what all good folk songs do in speaking from the heart, and what all good pop songs do in making you sit up and listen.

 

Make Model re-released their debut single ‘The LSB’ on 20 March 2008.

 

www.makemodel.com

www.myspace.com/makemodel

Don’t Smoke in Bed

Welcome to Don’t Smoke in Bed, a blog started with two simple things in mind: a love of music and a burning desire to write about it. Too much is written about music from a need to fill pages, placate record companies and “keep up” with what everybody else is listening to. There’s not enough of a genuine passion (or loathing) for whichever artist is being written about. I stand as someone who has been guilty of this charge in the past, and this is my penance as well as my opportunity. For too long I have wallowed in the realm of musical mediocrity just to get my name in print or on screen, without allowing my craft to develop in a direction free from restraint. So to hell with popular reassurance, Don’t Smoke in Bed is about speaking the truth because it must be said; and having fun in the meantime.

Please feel free to comment with contributions, feedback and rants. I’ll even welcome abuse if it gets a dialogue going.