Jumbled Headmusic

From a piano session with Tay last night, Carrot Rope (Pavement), Jed The Humanoid (Grandaddy) and Evaporated (Ben Folds Five) are sitting cross-legged on the floor and swaying dreamily.

From The Royal Tenenbaums on Sunday, Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard (Paul Simon) is throwing sand and thumbing its nose at the above three.

From Alec putting on The Cure last night, Lullaby (ohhhh, when that bass comes in) is slinking and gasping its way round clawing at the walls while simultaneously reapplying layers upon layers of black eyeliner.

From the radio this morning, Witness (Roots Manuva) is bursting the bionic zit splittah, downing ten pints of bittah, right now seeing clearer than most and sitting here contented wit’ dis cheese on toast.

Cease To Resist, Giving My Goodbye

When walking down the street feeling grand because it’s a beautiful day and feeling an irresistable urge to burst into song, do not give into said urge if the last song you’ve been listening to was Wave Of Mutilation. Even if it is a perfect sunny day song which should be blasted from the rooftops, in your humble opinion.

Actually, strange looks and their perpetrators be damned. It’s still in my head. Gower Street, prepare thyself!

Seeking Xen Calm

You know you’ve reached a low point in stress management when you wish it was time to start studying for the exams just so you could start eking out that simple existence of 2 am nights and 8 am mornings, and deeply boring but satisfyingly routine and sedentary days.

I refer to “low point” because I hate that existence, but it’s a hell of a lot better than this week’s frenetic staggering between exponentially increasing numbers of To Do List items – write research project (yo, if anyone’s an expert on the public international law aspects of Internet regulation, please talk to me), decipher Jeremy Bentham for jurisprudence dissertation, magically produce completely organized intervarsity debating tournament (this Friday and Saturday) out of arse…

But enough whinging. After writing a similar diatribe last Thursday I then allowed Russ to persuade me that I really needed to be at Cargo that night for our monthlyish Xen worship session, and although I then managed to miss 3 hours of lectures the next day and generally descend into self-hatred, it was well worth it just for the half hour of mind-boggling virtuosity that was Killa Kela’s mouth. There was also the unique cultural experience of being in a room full of white Brits who seemed to know every word of Roots Manuva’s Witness and joined in especially enthusiastically for the “cheese on toast” line, the sweat-soaked live exuberance of New Flesh (new album Understanding, currently stickered all over London), and DJ Vadim, endearingly Russian and generally loved by all.

Other causes for joy: long overdue ejection of dishwater-dull Darius from Pop Idol, which I, er, accidentally stumbled upon on a lazy Saturday evening in late December and have been, er, accidentally watching ever since. Grin. Go on then, pour forth your ridicule. I’M NOT ASHAMED! VOTE FOR WILL!

But moving on swiftly… :)

More glimmerings in the gloom include recent arrivals from Django (Sparklehorse: It’s A Wonderful Life, Marine Research: Sounds From The Gulf Stream, Sonic Youth: Goodbye 20th Century, stuff by Pavement, 20 Minute Loop and Silver Jews also on the way), a rather lovely boyfriend carrying pancake batter in a plastic jug on the tube in order to come over and cook me dinner, and actually understanding the maths in Cryptonomicon, which reassures me that two and a half years of law hasn’t cottonwooled my brain yet. Yet.

All Tomorrow’s Parties Are Elsewhere

GUESS WHAT??? All Tomorrow’s Parties!!! Has been rescheduled!!! To March 14-17!!! In UCL….A.

Sigh. So near, yet so far.

Would’ve made a great birthday present. Sigh.

Is anyone out there very rich, very generous and very foolish? Anyone at all?

I didn’t think so. Sigh.

Pitchfork 1, Sonic Youth 0

Ha. Pitchfork may poke fun at my favourite band a little too gleefully, and I really don’t think NYC Ghosts and Flowers was quite as dire as the 0.0 Brent DiCrescenzo gave it, but at least they’re funny, and often spot-on.

The NYC Ghosts review has this exceptionally penetrating insight about Kim Gordon’s vocal contributions to the album (hey, in my opinion, every album. I’ve written about it before.):
“Elsewhere, it’s straight spoken word, or in Gordon’s case, “grunted word”– the quality of which brings to mind freshman poetry classes where that one Doors worshiper recites beat prose to the general embarrassment of the entire class.”

From a recent news update:
“In Sonic Youth side project news, keep an eye out for the Supreme Indifference on Kill Rock Stars. The trio consists of Jim O’Rourke, Alan Licht, and Kim Gordon. The first track has been titled “Male in-Communication.” We suspect it is hideously experimental.”

Blur Moron

Is it just me being overly harsh, or is someone who calls up Xfm voting for Blur as the ultimate epitome of Britpop and then says the one song from their entire repertoire that represents this is Song 2 just a complete moron?

On days like this I want to wear this T-shirt.

Excuse this grumpiness. I have spent the day trying to absorb the subtleties of English Conflict of Laws rules on jurisdictional clauses. In practice this means I have spent the day falling asleep at my desk, and have the pen stain on my cheek to prove it.

Very Occasionally A Lyrics Person

I’m not really much of a lyrics person. It doesn’t really matter what Sonic Youth or Fugazi are singing to me as long as it sounds good with the guitars. Other Tori Amos fans gape at me in disbelief when I confess that I don’t really bother reading her lyrics. Apparently they’re deeply meaningful. I’m generally indifferent to the sort of music review where the reviewer quotes extensively from lyrics and concludes that the album is about redemption or tortured love or dark nights of the soul or whatever. I tend to home in on descriptions of how it all sounds and ignore analysis of meaning and themes.

I’ve always felt a bit guilty about this – sort of shallow and non-indie. Most people I’ve mentioned this indifference to lyrics to have certainly reacted with surprise and a little bemusement, and I suppose I’d get raised eyebrows from the A-list music bloggers as well if any of them read this blog (ha, I think not). I can’t really figure out why this is either – I love words intensely in every other context, but the pleasure I derive from most of the music I listen to is overwhelmingly sensory rather than emotional or intellectual.

This doesn’t mean that music lyrics are completely meaningless to me; they do affect my appreciation of music but in a limited and asymmetric way. If I already find a song musically appealing, lyrics I like make me like it more, but bad lyrics have negligible effect.

Which is why it’s unusual that I love Silver Jews’ American Water. There are lines throughout it that jump out at me and elevate what would otherwise feel like exceedingly pleasant but humdrum alt-country to an album of moods and stories and places. Random Rules has In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection; I know that a lot of what I have to say has been lifted off of men’s room walls; and But before I go I gotta ask you dear about that tan line on your ring finger, which are all quite amusing, but something in the ending gives it a similar sort of poignance as Papa Was A Rodeo (Magnetic Fields) except perhaps not as sharp. Wild Kindness closes the album saying I’m going to shine out in the wild silence and spurn the sin of giving in, later I’m going to shine out in the wild kindness and hold the world to its word, and I don’t even really know what this means, but it feels good to hear him sing that.

This happens elsewhere too. I’ve written about Papa Was A Rodeo before. Lyrics are more important to me in rap, and are the absolute essence of why I love 8pt Agenda (Herbaliser featuring Latyrx) madly, and rather enjoy Eminem. Lyrics (and okay, I admit, my secret hopeless romanticism. Stop laughing.) are big reasons why Somebody (Depeche Mode), Sometimes When We Touch (Dan Hill) and Annie’s Song (John Denver) render me weak-kneed, sappy-smiled and mushy-hearted. My enjoyment of Hefner’s The Fidelity Wars is equal parts funny lyrics and appealing melodies.

But most of the time lyrics don’t mean that much to me, which is why I went hmmmm while listening to American Water last night. Funny how these rambles of mine get triggered.

Always Your Way

Today there seemed to be an exhilaration in My Vitriol’s Always Your Way that I never quite noticed before. Walls of sound that shimmer and ripple and whirl themselves round you rather than remain static. Amazing energy in the guitars. I’ve been meaning to listen to the album for a while – this was a timely reminder.

Maybe it’s just that I was at my wits’ end trying to write the damn moot arguments (see previous post), but it reached out and grabbed me in a way nothing else on Xfm managed to the whole day, and yes, they did play The Strokes’ Last Night, which I remain completely underwhelmed by.

Portishead: Roseland NYC Live

I’ve been trying to return Portishead’s Roseland NYC Live to Yoichi for weeks but it refuses to leave my CD player, or my head. It’s hard to try and describe without sounding pretentious, but there’s an incredibly palpable extra dimension the tracks take on when played live that makes the studio versions (which I’ve loved for years) seem sterile in comparison. There’s a sense of weight and texture, of empty cold cavernous spaces the songs inhabit and move through. Feels perfect these winter nights.

Moments I love:

Somewhere around the fourth minute of Mysterons: quietly menacing lower strings, reverberating warped walls of sound, upper strings clawing their way up, up, up to climax, and then? Soft. Shadowy. Tiptoe to a close.

In Over, when the drums first kick in. They really put the whammy on you.

Spiralling claustrophobia in Glory Box starting from “This is the beginning of forever”. A feeling of eyes rolling back in your head and flashing lights behind your eyelids until the return to “I’m so tired” leaves you paradoxically gasping both to catch up and slow down.

The vocals in Roads. One moment eerily ethereal and perfect the way they echo through the air, the next moment plaintive and pleading and quaveringly imperfect, every moment of this song just feels imbued with poignance and longing and regret and I never ever want to listen to it when depressed, but for now it’s amazing.

All Mine is the only track that feels vastly inferior here from its album incarnation. The horns just don’t feel as sexy and imperious and James Bondy. In general the song just seems to lack that whole “fuck with me and I’ll beat the shit out of you and you’ll love every minute of it” vibe. Which is quite a pity.

Great album. I hope Yoichi’s a patient man.

Tori Amos (Hammersmith Apollo) / Rent (Prince Of Wales Theatre)

Tori on Friday. Rent on Saturday. Hence broke, grouchy and essay crisis-ridden on Sunday.

Tori:

Was objectively good, but not what I waited seven years to see. As a performer she gave all the charm and musicianship I’d expected from her, but managed to choose a setlist with very few songs from her repertoire that I love, which is quite an achievement given how much I do like most of it. It could be argued that some songs weren’t possible because she wasn’t playing with her band – Hello Mr Zebra comes to mind as a song that might suffer from the loss of those jaunty horns, but you could also say that someone like her who adapts things like Smells Like Teen Spirit for solo piano could probably find a way round that.

There were songs that simply left me cold – Juarez, Honey, Suede, Not The Red Baron. There were songs I don’t “enjoy” per se, but still had to hear live, and was glad to have experienced – ’97 Bonnie And Clyde, Me And A Gun. Then there were songs I do quite like but which still fall short of the ones I truly love – Putting The Damage On, Little Amsterdam, Upside Down, I Don’t Like Mondays, Leather, Time, Cruel, Only Women Bleed, I’m On Fire, Landslide. Then there was one song I love – Playboy Mommy. This is why I ultimately left a little disappointed, not with her, I guess, but just by chance.

Songs I’d have liked to hear: Silent All These Years, Precious Things, Pretty Good Year, Past The Mission, Cornflake Girl, God, Professional Widow, Blood Roses, Hello Mr Zebra, Marianne, Jackie’s Strength, 1000 Oceans, Real Men.

Oh well. Just my view, others saw it differently, and I still left the concert no less of a fan than I was before it.

Rent:

If you’re in London, and you’re considering going to the production currently running at the Prince of Wales Theatre, don’t. Adam Rickett is a terrible, terrible Mark: camp acting, reedy singing voice; whoever acted Roger seemed to think he was a member of Spinal Tap instead of a struggling indie musician and felt the need to strut everywhere crotch-first and generally just act very cock rock, had an accent that seemed to waver wildly between Geordie, vague American and comically stereotypical New Yorker, and a singing voice that couldn’t hack the high notes in One Song Glory.

Light My Candle was either directed by an utter moron, or the actors completely screwed it up. Either way, I don’t understand how anyone who’d ever seen a good production of Rent, listened to the soundtrack, or even just read the fucking libretto, for crying out loud, could have butchered it so completely. Musicals don’t tend to lend themselves to gradual development of relationships or characters. You’re expected to accept that he loves her and she loves him, truly madly deeply, usually to the death; why and how this is so is superficially explained at best, and just imposed at worst. The reason I’ve always loved Light My Candle is that it seems to convey, better than most, some feel of how people interact before the sweeping heartfelt declarations of undying love. The flickerings of attraction. The banter, sometimes shy, sometimes daring, the wondering, the hoping, finally the confirmation. We got none of this. No Mimi bending to search for her stash on the flood and Roger sneaking a look, Mimi noticing:

M: They say I have the best ass below 14th street – is it true?
R: What?
M: You’re staring again.

Just Mimi getting down on the floor and deliberately arching her booty up at him like a slapper right from the start.

No understanding of Mimi’s response to Roger’s quip about Spike Lee shooting down the street – first “bah humbug” because she’s laughing at the joke, second “bah humbug” at him, tenderly, a little awkward, their hands finding each other. We got two careless “bah humbugs” from the couch, then Mimi shooting across the stage and grabbing at him.

I realize I sound like a complete obsessive to anyone who isn’t familiar with the musical, and probably even to most people who are. I could go on, but I’m too tired and pissed off. Just be glad I haven’t seen a bad production of Les Miserables yet.