The Mitre Experience

It takes a special sort of person to appreciate the Mitre Hotel, which is why the only people I’ve ever taken there have been the Orgers and Alec. Last week a second Orger outing was organized by Don and Yen, who hadn’t had the “Mitre experience” yet but were determined to before the place either got a) more popular or b) razed to the ground by order of the public safety powers that be. And of course, as we knew they would, they loved it. (Read Yen’s love here.)

We perched on the dusty couches, sipped our sub-$4 beers, and talked about ghosts. (Terry and Don had just seen Shutter and were impressed.) At first we were the only ones there. Later, a couple swam into view, apparitions emerging from the black deeps beyond the porch lights. At some point a dog started howling in the distance.

I forgot to bring my camera this time, so these pictures are from when I took Alec there. They’ve been left fairly dark and dingy rather than sexed up too much in Photoshop, but still don’t even come close to evoking the atmosphere of the place – they lack the creepy walk up the driveway, the smell of musty decay, the feel of the brittle upholstery crunching beneath you as you sit down and crane your neck at the gaping holes in the ceiling.

Interior of Mitre Hotel bar
From the bar, looking towards the door
Mitre Cat
On the wall next to the bar
Old Door Grill
A close-up of the door grill, including the pack of stray chairs which lurk outside

Jimmy Corrigan: The Dullest Kid In The World

Much like my struggles with Life A User’s Manual a while back, the only thing that’s keeping me reading Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Chris Ware) is the paroxysms of joy it seems to inspire in its Amazon reviewers.

I remember picking the book up in Borders shortly after it won the Guardian First Book Award, and abandoning it soon after, stupefied, for The Wire. (Which, of course, can be stupefying in its own way eg. “Oh look, a critical re-appraisal of the Appalachian free jazz movement!”) I chanced upon it again in the Marine Parade library last week, so I decided to give it another try. So far, so blah. I’m finding the flow of the panels extremely non-intuitive, and I’m not getting the big deal about the quality of the drawing either. I’ll keep wading on though – Life A User’s Manual did pay off in the end. And at least it’s a good way to get me sleepy at night.

The Incredibles / Look At Me / Shutter

Out of the last four movies I’ve watched, the one which inspired me to write a long rambling blog post was the most middle-brow one with (by far) the worst reviews. Go figure. But I thought I should just write little snippets about the other three for the record.

  • The Incredibles: Was great fun, but I couldn’t think of any new or original ways to describe what was good about it, so I didn’t bother writing about it at the time. Most of my enjoyment of it was derived from the geeky thrill of identifying every homage to Watchmen, which is why I reread it just after watching the movie, and realized that any review I wrote of The Incredibles would pretty much end up being a ravefest about how amazing Watchmen is instead. My favourite part of the movie which had nothing to do with Watchmen was probably the name of the supervillain who appeared at the end – The Underminer, which I found hilarious.
  • Look At Me (Comme Un Image): Hard to describe the plot, you’d best read the review I linked to. This is definitely not a film for the impatient – you never know where the story’s going, and a familiar storyline never emerges e.g. “It’s going to be about how Indiana Jones goes on a quest to find the Holy Grail” or “It’s going to be about how nerdy girl will blossom and eventually get hot guy to fall for her.” Lots of scenes seem pointless early in the film, but later on you realize that they were showing you little things about its characters which build the overall impression of them which you leave with at the end, and I think this was actually its greatest strength. The opinions I formed of the characters at the beginning had evolved very considerably by the end, and yet nothing in the way the film progressed ever seemed forced or unnatural. I wouldn’t recommend this film to everyone, and especially not to anyone who doesn’t like arthouse films, but I did enjoy it. Watch it if you like Paul Thomas Anderson films, maybe – it does that whole “different lives intertwining through a series of coincidences” thing quite well, although that isn’t really its focus.
  • Shutter: Asian horror movies since Ringu have all looked really formulaic, sort of like attempts to just jump on the Asian horror bandwagon while it’s still a cash cow. While Shutter sticks to a fairly simple plot, and many of its scares are predictable enough, on the strength of the ones that aren’t, and its clever ending, I’d say this is definitely a cut above the rest. Frankly, although it isn’t as terrifying as Ringu and will probably not take the world by storm quite as much, I think it’s much more coherent as a film. If you’re not in South East Asia and haven’t heard of this Thai horror movie yet, don’t worry – I’m sure you’ll be able to watch some Hollywood remake starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ashton Kutcher in the near future.

[Speaking of Asian horror, Bedok cinema is apparently screening a film called I Know What You Did Last Raya. Intriguing.]

Rahzel Who?

Ever seen anyone beatboxing and playing latin jazz guitar at the same time? Well, now you can (a scissorkick exclusive). Before this, the most impressive beatboxing I’d seen was Killa Kela doing I’m A Slave 4 U complete with beats and breathy Britney vocals but this guy sure gives Kela a run for his money.

Cover Girl

I don’t actually agree with a lot of the Telegraph’s 50 best cover versions ever recorded, but it’s inspired me to chase some leads down all the same. I have high hopes for Johnny Cash doing One, and don’t quite know what to expect for The Bangles doing Hazy Shade Of Winter. While I’m trying to find those, here are my random thoughts about some cover versions I like and some cover versions I don’t. I see them as falling into three main categories, namely:

Paying Homage:
Indie bands like covering classic indie songs because it gives both the band and pretentious wankers like me in the audience the opportunity to show how we’re, like, totally in touch with Where It All Started by cheering in recognition and conspicuously mouthing all the lyrics. The problem is that unless you’re actually able to do something interesting with the song, there is no fucking point. Grandaddy’s cover of Pavement’s Here is a case in point, as is Death Cab For Cutie’s attempt at Bjork’s All Is Full Of Love. Neil Young gets covered a lot, but while I like the idea of Emmylou Harris doing Wrecking Ball and the Pixies doing Winterlong, the covers don’t sound like much more than people singing very pretty songs very prettily. The most successful one I can think of in this category (although I’d love to be told about anything I’ve missed) is Nirvana doing Lake Of Fire. There’s something about Kurt Cobain’s guttural “Where do bad folks go when they DIEEEEEEE” and “Don’t see ’em again till the fourth of Ju-LAAAAIIIII” which suits the song better than the pleasant harmonies of the Meat Puppets’ original.

Ironic:
This is the cover version where the artist says “I’m totally secure with my existing amount of cred, so I’m gonna sing something incredibly uncool now because I’m subversive that way.” I have to admit that I never find it that hard to enjoy ironic cover versions, because quite often I love the original song too. Travis did Hit Me Baby One More Time as a staple in their live shows at some point, but I prefer Richard Thompson’s Oops I Did It Again because his voice is so much more authoritative than Fran Healy’s and he puts in all these great acoustic guitar solos. My favourite ironic cover of the past year has been Ben Gibbard’s cover of Complicated. Ben Gibbard’s voice gets on my nerves sometimes, but here its winsome, almost overly-earnest quality sounds absolutely perfect. Also, the idea of him singing “Trying to be cool, you look like a fool to me” to a room full of trucker-capped, thrift-store-T-shirted, vintage-Converse-sneakered indie clones amuses me.

Complete Re-Imagining (but in a good, non-Planet-Of-The-Apes-2001 way):
How can Tricky’s Black Steel only be 29 in the Telegraph list? I’m too lousy at writing about music to think up a new way of describing how and why I love this song, but I stand by every word of my past gushing. The Slits’ post-punk I Heard It Through The Grapevine kills me every time with its crazy vibrato on the high notes, and every note of The Darkness’s Street Spirit is basically a crazily vibrating high note. If you haven’t heard Christopher O’Riley’s piano adaptations of Radiohead songs, Fake Plastic Trees is a great place to start. (And Jamie Fucking Cullum’s attempt at High And Dry, now advertised every five minutes on Singapore TV, makes me want to stuff his grand piano up his arse.) Will Young doing Hey Ya and Nick Cave doing Disco 2000 may seem like they should be in the Ironic category, but I’ve decided they belong here because both these covers actually make you realize how melancholy the original party classic songs actually are. You haven’t heard pathetic pleading until Nick Cave’s begging “What do you do on a Sunday, baby? Would you like to come and meet me, maybe? You can even bring your baby…”

Meeting People Isn’t Easy

I envy people with great stories about meeting people they admire. Benny has his about meeting DJ Shadow in a London newsagent. Jordan at said the gramophone has this lovely two–part tale about his odyssey to see Cat Power at a festival somewhere in Switzerland (he didn’t actually know where in Switzerland, though, which is what makes the story even cooler).

I, on the other hand, am unable to interact with people I admire without appearing like a complete idiot. I chickened out of saying hello to Zadie Smith the time I saw her on Torrington Place on my way home from the supermarket. I stammered something excruciatingly inane to Malcolm McLaren when he came to speak at a UCL Debating Society event the time he was considering running for London Mayor. In front of Neil Gaiman my mind went blank, and it didn’t help that he was drawing me a rat because then all I could think was NEIL GAIMAN IS DRAWING ME A RAT OH MY GOD.

Even my brushes with almost unknown indie musicians descend into humiliation the moment I try to tell them (sincerely) that I like what they do. I am aided along this expressway to embarrassment by Alec, who either makes things worse or laughs at me.

Take, for example, the time we went to the Arts Cafe for a Ladybug Transistor gig, and were extremely impressed by the (unadvertised) opening act, Bart Davenport. Emboldened by alcohol, we approached him later to buy his CD. Alec, whose memory for names leaves much to be desired, had forgotten the guy’s name but inexplicably decided to try and address him as something anyway.

Glancing quickly at the CDs on the merchandise table as he extended his hand in greeting, my favourite Alzheimer’s patient saw “BART DAVENPORT” but only the first four letters of the surname registered. Hence – “Dave!” said Alec enthusiastically to Bart Davenport, “Great performance Dave, I really enjoyed it!” etc. and with every “Dave!” more and more bits of my composure crumbled into a little mortified pile on the floor. Luckily, “Dave” was so sloshed that I’m not even sure he noticed he was talking to a pair of nimrods, and thank God for that.

I accomplished the next indignity all by myself, and this still smarts so much I’m not even going to name the band. It was the first time we went to the Water Rats, and I was really impressed by one of the opening bands. They looked really young – they were wearing the sort of clothes I associate with teens who desperately want to scream their indieness to the world – but they had catchy songs, strong vocals and lots of energy. Sadly, only about 15 people were watching them, and most of the people who weren’t us looked like their friends from school. This upset me a bit, as it always does when people don’t get the appreciation I think they deserve, or the credit they’re due. I thought they had real promise, and I was hoping they weren’t discouraged by the tiny audience. I wanted to tell them I thought they were great. I didn’t want them to give up on music.

So later on, when I was on the way to the bar to get my third Snakebite (you see the problem already) and saw the band hanging around, of course I went up to them and started a conversation.

Me: Hey, I really enjoyed your set.
Band (different members each time, we’ll just call them Band): Thanks very much!
Me: You sound great, how long has your band been around?
Band: About three or four years.
Me: Cool, no wonder you sound so good. If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you guys?
Band, giving me the first of many strange looks: Late twenties, mostly.

(This is where it all started to go pear-shaped for me. Late twenties??! Their dressing screamed 17!)

Me, thrown off now, clearly gobsmacked: Oh, right, right.
Band: You look surprised.
Me: Oh, er, no, I, uh, thought you looked a bit younger than that.
Band: Oh, really?
Me, gabbling stupidly while I tried and failed to move on: Oh, er, it’s nothing, I must have been mistaken. I was, uh, just noticing the people watching just now looked really young, I thought maybe they might have been your mates. (Inner monologue: What the fuck are you saying, Michelle? WALK AWAY NOW.)
Band, giving me the second of many strange looks: No, we don’t know them.
Me: Oh, right. Heh. Hmm. But anyway, you guys sounded really great!
Band, smiling tentatively: Thanks, we’re glad you enjoyed it.
Me, clearly possessed by some demon of dorkness: Do you have a good sound guy, or is the venue sound system just really good? (Inner monologue: WHAT THE FUCK??! WHAT THE FUCK?! Ground, swallow me up now, I mean motherfucking NOW!)
Band, giving me the fuckteenth strange look: Well, the venue system’s pretty good.
Me, now completely in bits: Right, right. Okay, gotta go deliver the drinks. Best of luck and all! (Walking away rapidly, not daring to look back.)

So I walked back into the other room, plonked the drinks down, grabbed Alec and started banging my head repeatedly on his chest.

Every day I thank every deity that could possibly exist in this world and the next that I haven’t met Sonic Youth or Salman Rushdie yet, and I hope I never do.