Passing headlights stare at us like eyes

-

Some people in your own or immediate sphere, and you have to realise this, just cannot be understood or reasoned with on any level whatsoever. I think I was thirty one years old, or so, when I finally 'got it'. A late developer, you could say. Or, perhaps, another way of looking at the Rhinehart dice is this: you do not want to comprehend the sometimes contradictory words and actions that spill forth from those you think you know. The accented musings don't add up, let alone the sentence on a screen. Deaf eyes and blind ears, and all that jazz. Whether part of a grand mystique, or just covering tracks, measuring bets even, perhaps, some explanations will just defy themselves. It just gets lost in the multiple translations that are on offer, I think that's the issue hidden under the surface. One step will take you forward, true, but the push to your bruised hips will land you at least three backwards; and so the shuffle and crushing goes on and on and on. And it's also concerned, I would guess, with the gazing towards an uncertain future without remembering what came before it, in the depths of a murky past. That's also critical. 'What I had to say is unsaid / What I had to do is undone', as Mark puts it in this song. This reluctance to action, to arms, is not apathy or fear, you understand, it is just undiluted full-on uncertainty. As another unwritten lyric put it so well, you didn't just want to not kill the hour, oh no, you wanted to salvage the entire twenty four hours as a keepsake. For that's what it is, or rather, what it was. A day in the life of someone who once knew what unconditional love was, how it actually felt; the way it just took over your every fucking pore and soaked your skin like plunging into pearly white waters from a fifty foot craggy drop, on high. With weights tied to your skinny glazed ankles as well. But his dear Katy, you'll remember, passed away and a monster was born; those warm summer days with a gentle, hazy moon after midnight were banished forever to be replaced by a longing for what should have been, rather than what was and came to pass. Tragic, in some ways, but it was what it was, friends. That's how the story went, and ended.

-

Red House Painters - 'Japanese to English' (4.42)

-

'A million miles away from home / and fifteen from a payphone.'

-

As an aside, if you'd like to get your hands on a pretty rare RHP radio session (from August 9th, 1988 - recorded for WREK in Atlanta, Georgia) then you should click here. Incredibly, this was captured just three months after they formed as a band. You can hear Mark, quite literally, finding his early voice and his place in the world, or at least the band.

-

They'll destroy you

-
So, this is a selective truth for an uncertain future: you should mostly be a wee bit cautious of endorsing any recommendations that come to you from people you don't really know and will, in fact, probably never meet. This sentiment holds true, I find, whether you are discussing shoes, drugs, books, sexual positions or music. 'Yeah, I think you'll like them - I mean, do you remember when R.E.M. had guts, charm, passion and hooks? Well, that's the sound and the attitude, but with a more Tennessee lilt and twang to their punchy swagger'. So I admit, I was curious and it happily all checked out. It's also left me thinking that perhaps the 'event' that is known as 'Rockness' (gag!) should not be so easily dismissed after all? Yes? No? That is, to be sure, assuming you can hike North by noon on the Sunday, at the very latest, to witness the first act take the main stage and claiming it, more than likely, as their very own. I'm a bit indifferent to the new long-player in its fullness, alas, but this particular song is just fucking glorious...
-
The Boxer Rebellion - 'The Runner' (3.39)
-
Go visit + see + buy. A brief history lesson.
-
PS, Have you heard the somewhat leaky-leaked new Tom Vek album yet? It is everywhere. And, woah, it is seriously good. Can't wait to hear 'Too bad' live. What a TUNE!
-

I can't make this plea on your behalf

-
It's all, unintentionally, revealed in the stuttering eye contact, and in the knowing of what he knows that you know that must, nonetheless, remain hidden. It's a contrived act, a total performance. 'This cannot be happening', is the pin-badge he is wearing openly, declaring both his worst fears and best intentions. You remember this earlier moment, in what is becoming yet another surreal day, as the hopeful thirty-something woman across the street is checking her cumbersome watch every few moments. She seems anxious, flushed, excited; as if anticipating the Circus coming to town one last time. She feels her starched stiff neck with her extending left-hand fingers and flattens her M&S cotton dress down, for only the seventh time or so. Taking another drag on a cheap worn-out cigarette, you get the awful feeling he may not appear to her, not tonight. How long will she stand there, testing time you wonder? But he does fly round the corner, jumping at her in lightspeed fashion, and only a few minutes later than was promised by the text message she clearly failed to receive. She mouths to him, wildly 'I thought you weren't coming!' and he mouths back 'You don't get away that easy, baby'. Her nerves instantly disappear and soft hands are taken, and the evening begins. Like clockwork, for them.
-
Danny Saul - 'Clockwork' (7.41)
-
I've written a few times about Danny now, and I will not stop. He is a Saul Destroyer, truth. You should buy Danny's album here. And watching this Hotpants Romance cover might just put a smile on your face too.
-

When your spoken words no longer matter, Michael

-

Well, to share this startling revelation or not? Sigh. I suppose it's just a spectacular lack of imagination on my part that the scariest dream I've had in a very long time involved me being chased through this plaice (har-de-obvious-har!) by someone who looks a lot like Michael Praed did in his mid-80s 'Robin of Sherwood' phase (was anyone else around these parts as devoted to that series as me? - and dare you admit to it? - and no it wasn't just to do with the music of Clannad). What makes this dream-fact a lot worse (heavens!) is that the reason this guy with the hair, the teeth and the smell was chasing me was to do with an unpaid tax bill (!). I mean, jeezo. Is that it? Have I turned into a sub-plot from an old George Lucas script? I think I really need to get out a lot more, and step away from that website (unsung hero or dastardly villian, views?). Anyway, normal service is now resumed and here is a wee Sunday mix; all instrumentals that are admired, adored and in need of your delicate ears. And on that sweet note, I am shutting the fuck up until next time (doubtless now off to a terrifying dream involving, er, Ryan Giggs, Mrs Slocombe and Jamie Oliver fighting it out over the recent IMF, um, vacancy...).

-

Claude Debussy - 'Clair de lune' (5.13)

The Reegs - 'Start to see' (5.59)

Boards of Canada - 'Chromakey dreamcoat' (5.48)

Faith No More - 'Midnight cowboy' (cover) (4.12)

Butcher Boy - 'Every other Saturday' (demo) (4.59)

-

I recall, when I first played this album not long after it came out, I actually thought I was listening to the sound of the future of everything that ever mattered to anyone I had ever known, and in such lovely notes as well. Gorgeous.

-

This is not the way I remember it here

-

It's all about yesterday, she said, taking a short walk East to see the scarred geographies of where dead places, and their people, reside, waiting, we hope, to rise again. Those towering, sleeping giants of industry, sullen and morose in a comatose and redundant state. And true, the offices are all closed up - 'for staff training'. This does not fool anyone, let alone your fretful landlord. The assets are clearly stripped to the bleached bone, taken away for a new tomorrow. And so onto the Western front, papers clutched, pre-meetings had, questions hanging limp on the cracked lips of your so nervous mouth. Unfolding just as you thought it might, a rather unedifying affair; stage-managed performances that John Parish wishes he could claim as his own. A tale of two cities, right enough, with those living in the sky seeking closures, "disinvestment", and those scrimping in the dirt seeking to protect what they hold dear as their very own - disciplines, jobs, identities. No votes are asked for, none expected. This is 'consultation', after all, not a 'decision'. You will wait your turn, within twenty-two days. A bus back to town drops you, via a detour, to another location where you receive smiles and handshakes, not frowns and avoidances. In this fair venue you do not suffer from an intellectual leprosy. Indeed, whilst your very worth and existence was questioned, just hours ago in barren chambers, now your value is heralded and paraded in a stage-scene lifted from the Mercury Prize. The glitz and the glamour make for an end to a surreal experience, and day, but then again is this not the life we all live now? Temporary moments, drifting from experience to experience, building us up and knocking us down. I guess the best advice is to hang on tight and line up that last Tequila Rapido, my friends.

-

Icehouse - 'Street Cafe' (4.14)

-

All things Iva. This is breathtaking. In other news, I am finally listening to this band again; and I am handling it. I'm even going to see them play live in August (this time I will get a taxi home).

-

Wave goodbye to our thankless jobs

-
Oh well then. We now know where many of us stand, in a non-technological fashion. And, I guess the fight to save disciplines, courses and jobs is very much on, in an immediate and directly-affected kind of way. The 'consultation' period on proposals to shut down four programmes (Geography, Music, Community Education and Sociology) at our 'place of useful learning' runs until June 10th. So, I'm afraid, I'll be more than a bit caught up in all of this 'Save Our Subjects' activity, from both a UCU and staff perspective. And, you know, despite the alluring title, my job isn't thankless at all; I actually love it more than I can ever hope to say and would much prefer not to be made redundant (just like everyone else out there staring this awful prospect in the face). Yes, the temptation to 'get out of this country' is great though, I confess, but I obviously won't, and I can't. The fight is on, as mentioned. Anyway, rather than bore you to a state of permanent sleep with my usual nasal whining and self-pitying anger, I rather suspect I will just limit my postings here, keeping them few and far between over the next couple of weeks. I will be pretty busy anyway, trying to stop this intellectual vandalism, and if I did get polemical on this page I'd just end up ranting or crying - and posting lots of tracks by this band, or perhaps this one. The favourites tend to be comforting in this hour of need, don't you think? In closing, I'll just offer my sincere apologies to the 17.4 readers who make a point-and-click pilgrimage to this, er, shrine (?) on a day-to-day basis and tell youse that I'm personally obsessing about everything Tracyanne right now as she just has a way of nailing that particular feeling (to a second-hand graduation gown) and shaking a really big pointy fucking stick at it.
-
Camera Obscura - 'Let's get out of this country' (session version) (2.46)
The Cryin' Shames - 'Please stay' (3.01)
-
Aye, to smile and blush in the presence of Tracyanne. The Cryin' Shames song is one of Carey's favourites, by the way.
-

A gilded eternity

-
Life is all about the sweet and the sour, isn't it just? Well, some really good news: I'm going to be stewarding at Indietracks this year (thanks Dan!). And this wonderful news comes on the back of another lovely thing that made me weep, in a good way - I have been nominated for a Teaching Excellence award. The students themselves vote for this, via the Union, so that makes it particularly amazing, as well as rather staggering. However, the bad news, sigh, more than a few of us at work will find out (in a few hours time) if we still have something resembling meaningful employment or not. It is looking less than hopeful, I'm afraid to say, as many posts at my place of work will be subject to what they now call "early release". I tell you, neo-liberalism, and this ConDem coaltion, can just go eat a large bowl of dicks. It's difficult to sleep. I am feeling vulnerable, for the first time in, oh, about 48 hours or so. It's difficult to know quite what to do next. Except, perhaps, to make like Yosser... gizza job? I can do that? Now might just be the time to start that record label or, much more likely, write that novel... or, in fact, to play this song and try to get a hold on what's going to, the fuck, happen next...
-
Loop - 'Burning World' (demo version) (5.01)
-
Whether employed or redundant, this is one of the best albums you could possibly own, seriously.
-

When you're ending with diamond eyes

-
I was forced to remember, years ago now, having an awkward conversation with an ex-best friend about the centrality of 'voice' on any given record; how vocals, lyrical delivery if you like, impacted on a song and how gender was so central to this 'performance'. He admitted, a bit sheepish, that he did not listen to much 'female' music (or rather, what I think he meant by this unfortunate expression, was music where female vocals take the centre stage). I was slightly taken aback by this revelation, though, I admit, his honesty made me think hard about my own listening habits and how central gender was to my choices and preferences. Anyway, I was reminded of this long-ago dialogue last night as I played 'Hounds of Love', for what must have been the many thousandth listen, after the visiting children were popped off to bed and the lovely Hendricks made an appearance. It is such a fine album, really. And it prompted the mini-mix below; songs where women, their 'female' vocals (uh oh, biological essentialism! danger! danger!), make the songs absolutely what they are. This is no more so than the included cover version, a pretty faithful take on a Hüsker Dü track from the 1987 'Warehouse: songs and stories' album. The change of gender, in a powerful way, turns a great song into a storming one, in my opinion, and Bob Mould also adored it apparently. As for Sandy, Cat and Laura. Sigh. You can just drift off, melt away to their incredible words and voices, especially Sandy's finely-observed story, told with pitch just so and perfection in every note. She would have been 64 a few weeks back, you know. Shed a tear, or three... with or without the Gin. x
-
Cat Power - 'Crossbones Style' (4.33)
Kate Bush - 'The Morning Fog' (2.38)
Laura Veirs - 'Ether Sings' (3.45)
Sandy Denny - 'Next Time Around' (4.24)
Heidi Berry - 'Up in the Air' (Hüsker Dü Cover) (3.15)
-
As a complete album, it is hard to beat this one. Go say hello.
-

Those were the days of eternal nights

-

"But I remember the way you used to use your eyes
I remember your eyes and your thighs and
The jet black tights you wore underneath your long blue shirt
You bought second-hand to keep you dry on rainy nights
So who told you you were a country girl?
Who told you you were a country girl?
Star-crossed lovers headed for disaster
You took a lifetime on the morning after..."

-

You were always very photogenic, with those well-placed cheekbones and turny-up lips. I always wore terrible Oxfam jumpers and pretended to know how to smoke. And, she... well, P just told amazing stories about shagging Morrissey around the back of the Caird Hall in Dundee after that gig in 1985 (wishful thinking!). But, to be nearly honest, I don't miss Paisley one bit, not anymore. I think it's about kicking nostalgia, and 1988/89, into touch. It's about going forwards, in every particular sense, no? I mean, even G has moved on now, quite literally, to plough his younger fields of Barley. Life can change direction in an absolute instant, make no mistake about it. But, something about this song will always remind me of George Street, Friday night at the Union, and you.

-

The Bolshoi - 'Lindy's Party' (5.45)

-

An album to listen to, now and again. On rainy nights.

-

Just let me hang up there a while

-
Live. Laugh. Love. Oh dear. And I think we have all wondered this at least nine times a day for the last sixteen years. Or so. What exactly, the fuck, is going on with my life right now? Two things have happened in the last 72 hours or so that, urgently, made me think about this song, and this version of it in particular. It’s more for Jackie’s spoken introduction, rather than the composition itself, to be accurate and honest, but still... have a listen, if you'd care to. I mean, there are no questions coming or anything like that. I just seem to be losing it, in short, just like Jackie did on the banks of River Nore, that is, An Fheoir, all those Doll By Doll years ago. Firstly, rather bizarrely, I was pulled over by three undercover cops at the train station the other night who told me that I (unfortunately) looked like a known drug dealer and they wanted to check my ID, just to be certain I wasn’t him. This was on the back of a pretty keich day, by the way, so I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and so, instead, I asked them for their ID and got a bit fucking stroppy about mah civil liberties, being stopped, and all that jazz. And here is the news flash, folks - and it's a rather general, obvious kind of tip - never, never lose it at an undercover gavver. Sigh. And, even more so, just yesterday, I was at the skatepark with D and R watching them scootering away from the Bank Holiday and intact knees, trying to keep out of trouble, and this very reasonable kind of a guy, from behind me, said, West End poshly, ‘Excuse me, please’. He was on a space-age kind of bike that would cost me and you a month's salary, or whatever, and his partner and young child were also on mini-me techno-bikes, following on behind him as Loyal Tribe. I had one foot on the poorly-tarmaced path that winds its cheap way around the climbing frame and just said ‘Why, what have you done? Ah am no blocking your fucking way, pal’. He got stroppy with me, and rightly so. And I got very, very stroppy back at him. The guy peddled on, just like Luka Bloom did back in the early 90s, and his partner, on her way and chasing tails, shouted back, ‘No offence’. I bit my tongue, and then some. Anti-middle class violence. Jeezo. I don't know: I just seem to be picking, itching, for fights these days, for absolutely no reason at all, on the surface of it - feeling angry at something (myself?) I just can’t smell, touch, see, hold. Is it the emptiness? Me? Seriously, stay away. Please. I think I need to sort myself out, you know. Just like Jackie had to do when he had the biker jacket and the hair in a long ponytail... and he couldnae even say 'hello' to a passing stranger.
-
Jackie Leven - 'Marble City Bar' (live) (7.35)
-
Aye, brand new pal, this is something to listen to whilst you have a wee dram of this (if you sell the posh acoustic motorbike).
-

Trying to remember the last sane dream you ever had

-
Well, just look at this comrades, there are no shambling or even jangling guitars involved this time around. OMG! WTF? Etc. The heavens may well implode. But, to be fair, I did make a firm promise a few weeks ago that these regular Sunday mixes wouldn't just be C86 indie-pop and/or early-90s shoegaze in nature, remember? And so I can now fulfill this bold promise. I suppose you could call this a 'dub'-type of mix (?) but I wouldn't be too sure about that sorely abused, rather hijacked, badge of dishonour these days. It has deep, historical and political connotations, you know, the purists would gaggle, weep and then attempt murder for the sake of musical mummification. Watch your backs out there. Thus, to safeguard my general health and well-being, I'll say no more except this: these are all fucking brilliant tracks whatever genre you want to place them in. Just listen; listen hard, listen deep and listen as if your wee-twee-free life depended on it. More jangle coming soon though, obviously... :)
-
Augustus Pablo - 'Tubby's Dub Song' (dub version 2) (3.40)
Cotti and Cluekid - 'Flashback' (5.52)
Burial - 'South London Boroughs' (5.05)
Eskimo Fox - 'Digital' (4.24)
Lee "Scratch" Perry - 'I Got the Groove' (5.28)
-
Out of all and everything, I guess, choosing this one long-player would be more than perfect to accompany your large glass of Hendricks - with added cucumber of course - this evening. Or is that a touch controversial, I wonder? The album selection, I mean. I thought it one of his best, actually.
-