Saturday 10 March 2012

Just a slogan on a T-shirt

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There is something, well, persuasive and convincing about these sounds. No? Maus music. It isn't 'forgettable', for me. To be sure, in places, it has those 80s post-punky synth hooks and, in a strange way, they are making out with disco music in the hidden alcoves of the club, kinda thing. A bit hipstah, perhaps. But is that such a bad thing, by definition? There are faint memories of 'classic' Hall and Oates, for some reason. But, this all works, curiously. And that voice. It resonates and stretches down to the depths of a long-abandoned well that is as dry as the Sonoran desert in high summer. Lots of spaces, delays and echoes. It's an immediate anthem, a direct statement of intent, we can at least agree on that. I just love it. And, in addition to the sounds, he's a PhD student in political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. It's a CV to die for, really. I am a fan.
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John Maus - 'Rights for Gays' (2.40)
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In search of Mausspace / Something awesome to watch ;)
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Thursday 1 March 2012

On the challenges of (in)direct communication

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On days like these you tend to notice the awkward, vocalised, public sharing of intimate details. Witness: standing apart as their uneasy alliance purposefully marches in time to a beat unrecognised; clutched shopping bags in outstretched twenty-something limbs that keep their tentacled hostility at a bridged, safe, distance. This is Argyle Street at dinner time, yesterday, and although the physical space is paramount - 'The Silent Lanaguge' (1959) - the raised voices keep them locked together, but divided in domestic battles. Others passing by watch and listen for the hurt accusations to fly and the emotional retaliations to shoot back. It's another kind of Soap Opera. The children stare and are, no doubt, reminded of unhappy times past, in a different kind of life. Assorted scraps of information are thrown out like manipulative hand grenades; 'Aye, but you said you never spent that money...' and 'No, but, it wisnae like that, it was a certain thing, eh...'. You can imagine the crippled - 'Oh poor me!' scene. She was right, he was wrong. Unworthy crimes and situated errors of timely consideration; a lack of direct and easy-to-hear communication. There is an aggressiveness evident amongst the non-existent passivity. And then, another scene, on the train between High Street and Partick, a young indie-couple with similar issues, going out for the night by the looks of it. Young, in love and together, at least until the next episode of 'Hollyoaks' is shown; his concern with a distanced baby daughter (and ex-partner) and her concern for an active, coupled-up, social life. 'But I thought you were getting her that day, what about us...' and 'No, I didnae say that, it's a Wednesday and I cannae go out then as I need to do the Nursery run in the morning.' Forced connections, unhappy splits fill the air of this carriage that can't be escaped. The 'stuff', and times, of our cultured lives I guess. The former couple will, no doubt, be together until the end of time... whilst the latter couple, well, they will break up sometime next week, before the storyline gets the chance to fully unfold. But who can tell, really. It's a game for fools, indeed.
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"The very life..." - in other events, and in case you were wondering, my (new) job is safe for at least another three years, I can remain in Glasgow, within the technological bosom of my current employer. I'll be heading up the new Graduate School in the restructred Faculty, in an Associate Dean kind of way (again). I am both grateful and relieved, not to mention a tiny bit wary and scared. I can happily live without another job interview for a very long time though, I must say. Jim - you can have your purple tie back now - it did the job just fine. :) Ta.
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Eduardo Niebla and Antonio Forcione - 'Celebration' (6.19)
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Sublime guitars, passion of the soul. Not a word is spoken. Edward T. Hall would surely approve.
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Friday 24 February 2012

Like a drunken kiss in the morning light

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Where were you? It is everything good and right and effortless; and yet this fleeting moment is derailed and distorted via cheap cellphone CCTV. Beauty ill-defined; a star of the age is uplifted and the essence of an embodied, shuttered, memory bruises a tired heart. Come closer, for he is destiny as imagined in some other world, far from this palatial bothy. A scolded sting to those crumbling services, positioned on the outer edges of such lucious, golden lips. The sketched, swollen eye nodding towards a distant lens reminds you he really 'means' it. It's time to go home, across the sky miles, to what you once knew as comfort and joy. He is just for you, tonight.
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Shearwater - 'I was a cloud' (Session Version) (4.18)
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Home / Record / Tour - Shearwater play Stereo, Glasgow, on Sunday April 1st. No joke. The new album, Animal Joy, is out now on Subpop. The photo of Jonathan was taken by myself at a show at Neumos in Seattle, December 12, 2008.
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Monday 20 February 2012

I'm all set

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Gasp! So, the third record is finally in the making. Hurrah! And, if you are very quick, you might still be able to purchase a 'special solo performance' on Skype. ;) And, even more good news, this guy has a new record out at the end of May as well. Chris and Mark working together? OMFG. Yes please, Santa. Make it happen.
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Chris Garneau - 'No more pirates' (live) (3.13)
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Love Zombie Central. Yes, I was lucky enough to interview and photograph (!) Chris in May 2007. He played a show at this place, supporting label-friends Xiu Xiu. He was stunningly awesome, whether speaking or singing. Or, actually, just sitting still for a photograph... <3
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Saturday 11 February 2012

The cunt sits at his desk and he's plotting away







 
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The Twilight Sad, @ The Grand Ole Opry, Glasgow, 09-02-12
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It's about loss and death, the hipstah boy with a sharp haircut and letterbox-framed glasses, ponders. It's about past mistakes and associated bitter regrets, the petite girl with a heavily inked back whispers to a friend. It's a homage to post-punk and the memory of Curtis, the group of lads at the bar bellow like horses on heat. It's a necesary step change and shift of gear, argue those in the know, who are close to the band. It's a little too cold, claustrophobic and one-dimensional... I think (and all the better for that, of course). But it is a fucking grower of an album, that's also quite certain. Debates rage. Differences are aired. The record, 'No One Can Ever Know' (Fatcat, 2012), is not long out and already loose words fly around that cul-de-sac called the internet like Aldi plastic bags in a West coast hurricane. As for the show; well, it's a nervous opening night of the tour and Glasgow calls out for their assumed local hero, James Graham. He commands the stage and a dazzling multi-coloured, strobe-heavy, lightshow does indeed create shadows of a certain Stretford local and the voice matches the carefully-placed picture frame, when the technical difficulties are resolved. As would be imagined and expected, the set is mainly populated by tracks from the new long-player but a good half dozen songs are taken from earlier releases; including rather different (keyboard-enhanced) versions of  'Cold Days in the Birdhouse' and 'At the Burnside', to these muddled ears at least. In that odd sense of misplaced symmetry, however, the set opens with the new album closer - 'Kill it in the Morning'. It's a pounding, relentless beginning and the set continues in this styled and somewhat repetitive manner. Indeed, the lack of variation in tempo, mood and positioning is sorely felt; a foray into the other strands of what this band can do (and, yes, does so well) was missed. For example, anyone who has heard their live, acoustic, interpretations of songs like 'Half a Person' or 'The Room' might appreciate these words. But, to be fair, this is perhaps missing the entire point of the show; it's thirteen songs delivered with minimum fuss and architect precision, all shaped and moulded by the keyboards and drums, as well as the finely-pronunciated vocals of Graham. To be sure, the guitars are not exactly redundant or vanquished in this live cowboy show at the Grand Ole Opry; more like set to the touchline to cool down and reappear later in the last quarter. The songs below were clear highlights, as I heard them, but a special mention must also be made for the classic 'I became a Prostitute'. If the band have a signature tune this must surely be it. Tonight they parade at the Queens Social Club, Sheffield; expect a storming of the barricades.
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The Twilight Sad - 'Alphabet' (6 Music Session Version) (4.17)
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Band / Tour / Label (with thanks to Matt Turner/Peenko)
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Set-list: Kill It In The Morning; Don't Move; That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy; Dead City; Reflection of the Television; Alphabet; I Became a Prostitute; Sick; Another Bed; Cold Days From the Birdhouse; Nil; And She Would Darken the Memory; At the Burnside.
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Wednesday 8 February 2012

Spurning step by state


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'Ostinato', he urged. An uptight focus paired with singular direction; tears, pain and stubborn mentalities carved into the missing timbre floorboards. Another time escapes, your dacha in the frozen cantata wilds. Heads nod and give way, to a clef misplaced years ago. This looped recording process needs no summer daylight, oils or otherwise, scratching at droned soundboards, fading candles and engineers who know their place only too well. Such inability to sleep or to forget; reflections of self within post-shower puddles of sweated condensation. A captured piano lands a fatal blow in ebony, parched in the distance; whilst drums breeze and wallow through the glissando landscape, from a gallery where 'children stare with heroin eyes'. Guitars fall in and out of step, battered and weeping with the sores of polytonality and scowls of bewildered joy. Scattered throughout this tombstone apartment, his retiring voice resonates, remembers and folds. The guilt and the grieving ends soon, it is written in glee. And, to be fair, he never claimed to be perfect; this deceptive cadence. He never even claimed to be the kind of person who could put one foot in front of the other, let alone one word or note that might grace a European popular hit parade. Making no sense at all, perfectly, mistakes in rhyme and reason as we grow up, whatever age you might have been when the tapes rolled. But, why-oh-why, do we make the same errors of circumstance time and time again? It's enough reason to bow out, come the label-induced curtain coda. Pushed or fell? The one who ultimately knows will never speak, lest the illusion be revealed, and in this truth lies the root beauty and the ugly finale all at once. Encore, at last. The time has come, in edited formation.
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Talk Talk - 'After the flood' (outtake) (4.14)
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Within Without, you. Something to look forward to (Spring 2012).
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Monday 30 January 2012

You have to start somewhere

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'I would like to be an architect' said the sweaty young Czech student in shining, multi-coloured sports lycra as he exited the local Aldi shop to his pal who, rather bemused, just turned to him and said 'But then why are you doing an economics degree?'. 'Well', said our erstwhile hero, 'You have to start somewhere'. And I think that's exactly it: you have to start somewhere. Even if you don't want to be an architect, in fact.
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Ally Kerr - 'The sore feet song' (3.07)
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The loon bides here, eh.
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Friday 27 January 2012

We're both at our best in a tight spot

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His assisted height nearly matches his fanciful strides; footloose stomps travelling to a railwayed destination, I would guess. The bag on wheels and A-Z map in hand are the rather unsubtle clues. A bitten cigar tossed carelessly to the side just misses a neatly scarfed woman, on cardboard knees, pleading for offerings from those walking by, the same people pretending to be too busy to acknowledge her being or ordeal. I steal a glance to his side, his left-side, attempting to keep pace with the final furlong approaching. There is no tie but an open-necked wound, a deep shade of colour in his glowing cheeks, matching his apparel, and a harsh wind bites deep into masked layered cracks. I’d thought early fifties, from behind, but perhaps slightly older. The mannerisms, purpose and clothing are deceptive; they scream ‘I Am Interesting’ and ‘I Am Not Dead Yet’. I recognise (some of) the signs and symbols exhibited. We are travelling similar paths, you and I, but are more than a million miles apart in reality. I could never match such poise, movement and direction; this intoxicating mixture had my admiration from first glance. A phone goes off to the sound of an X Factor chart-hit I clearly don’t want to recognise and a swarm of genderless pre-teens shout in unison ‘It’ll be him, fucking well answer it!’ This distraction leads to another; for a moment I lose sight of the target as I am led astray by the smell of a distant, chemically enhanced, Greggs product I can only smell hospitals and nostalgia from. But, there he is. The man in the purple suit. Ahead and bold, steering into the barren station that I also, unwillingly, march towards in search of a future I’m not sure I am ready for.
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The Lucksmiths - 'Self-preservation' (2.03)
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HomeObtain / Visiting
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